Ticket to the Gun Show

by Billie Pritchett

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​The worst threat came late one night when my father, rifle in hand, made a break for the patio, shouting he was going to kill himself, and from outside the opened sliding door, the sound barrier broke, while inside with me, my mother startled, hand to mouth, unable to bring herself to go outside, but I could, because I was too young to fear enough, as I came to the patio door and espied my father standing in the dark, holding his rifle low, while high up his face was affixed with a grin and blue moonlight wet his teeth.

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Billie Pritchett teaches in the Department of Liberal Arts and English Education at Kyungnam University in Changwon, Korea. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and has appeared in Washington Square Review, John Jay College's J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and most recently in Bluestem Magazine.

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