Aphelia and Leigh, fiction by Kyle Hemmings

We were listening to Doodles Weaver crack jokes on Rudy Vallee's radio show when it happened. We were catching dust from the open car windows, the dry wind from the Black Mesa. Maybe if Aphelia hadn't driven her father's rickety box-of-metal-on-wheels so hard, so reckless, the one she stole, along with his police revolver, it wouldn't have broken down. Maybe if she didn't hold up the pimple-faced kid shakin' in his knickers at the grocery store back in Reynes for a bag of god-darn...