Published in The Golfer's Journal, issue No. 7.
It was the armadillo that finally did it. It was bigger than you’d imagine an armadillo to be, at least if you grew up in Appalachia, where armadillos were uncommon sights, and had only ever glimpsed them from a speeding car window, flattened on the sides of various Florida interstates. It was uglier than you’d think too, and hairier, inexplicably whiskered and patchily sprouting these awful little bristles, and it was also dead and taxidermied (poorly) and perching on our kitchen counter.
It makes reasonable sense, looking back, that my mother was upset.
I'm a multi-platform journalist and story producer, a Tennessee Volunteer by birth, a West Virginia Mountaineer by blood, an occasional Angelena, a current ATLien, and an Aquarius, if you're interested. Past work samples to the left, where all the words are.