No Side Short stories and poems by Michael Swaim.

Score by Davey Francis.

Distributed by Small Beans.

Found online at Patreon.com slash Small Bean. small beans.

This is dedicated to Noah Byrne,

who taught me that the only way to run with a mug of hot coffee without spilling it is not to look,

and that everyone has a shit room. If you're listening to this, you've done it, penetrated to the deepest parts of my emotional sanctum,

whether you intended to or not.

Performers tend to do that to you. We're like placemat mazes crying out to be easily solved.

And yet, only a slim few of those I've been lucky enough to call my fans have cared to take an interest in the

disquieting castles that inevitably result when I'm left unattended in a sandbox.

But stories and poems like those that follow are what initially found me and made me into a writer.

The short fiction of genre authors is my favorite flavor of brain candy,

and it's with immense gratitude that I humbly attempt to contribute

to that story flow.

You're going to learn about some of the things I care most about and some of the things I fear

most as well. We'll talk about loss, resilience,

cruelty, passion, art, death, and its antecedents, how to live among trees and how to take vengeance on the universe.

It's a darker journey than most offered by this network,

but thankfully we have the wonderful music of Davy Francis to illuminate the way ahead.

Let's get started. The The show must go on. In the darkness of the amphitheatre, the every thought was a buzz.

They had expected the separation to be traumatic, of course, but they had not expected this.

...