The Open Mouth

Note: I wrote fourteen stories in 2020. Three of them were accepted to publications. One of them is still being shopped around. I intend to retire the rest of them and give 2021 a fresh start. I’ll be publishing my retired stories here on my blog (warts and all) along with relevant story notes. I hope you enjoy.

I wrote “The Open Mouth” while my youngest daughter was going through the roughest part of her sleep struggles early in the year. There’s a lot of guilt in this one. I felt guilty...