I. The laundromat closed first. No sign. No auction. One Tuesday there were machines; Wednesday there was brown paper over the windows and the smell of wet plaster.

II. My father stopped saying my mother’s name. Not angrily. Efficiently. As if he were correcting a typo in a document he intended to keep using.

III. The pay phone outside the liquor store remained after the receiver was removed. For months people still stepped toward it when they needed to make a call.

IV. A woman I loved deleted every photograph of us except one in which I am mostly hidden behind a beach umbrella. I have chosen to regard this as mercy.

V. The factory went quietly. First the third shift, then Fridays, then the parking lot weeds. The building still says MERIT TOOL & DIE in letters big enough to be seen from the interstate. Nobody has died there professionally for eleven years.

VI. I used to think disappearance meant absence. Now I think it means remaining visible after your purpose has gone.

Fictional launch sample created for Broken Zine.

Writes flash, fragments, lists, and other small forms with sharp edges.

Fictional launch contributor created to populate the prototype issue.

Disappearance means remaining visible after your purpose has gone.