1. All-night loops of QVC, and the turtle shaped tumblers. Insulated. BPA free, with no returns

2. Eight hundred and fifty-three dollars in Bitcoin bought on the cracked screen of my cell phone with tabs open about the dark web and fifteen ways to plunder it’s secrets.

3. Calls into the local DJ, who refuses to play my requested songs until I cry. This recording is used on the morning show for weeks. No one else recognizes my voice. Caller after caller making wild guesses. John Dean, Dolly Parton, a Kardasian.

4. The baby pool in the backyard filled with a mountain of ice and all the PBR they’d let me buy in one transaction. I sat out in the sun in a tank top and shorts, ice tucked under my arm pits while the sun scorched my skin. I was trying to prove something to you, but like most of my gambles I had no way of informing you of the stakes.

5. The pool, deflated, full of bugs, beer cans bulging from the heat, my ear a capsized boat, as the water tells me its secrets, a language, I couldn’t interpret.  I whispered back, come home.

Tommy Dean lives in Indiana with his wife and two children. He is the author of the forthcoming flash fiction chapbook entitled Covenants from ELJ. He is the Editor at Fractured Lit. Find him @TommyDeanWriter on Twitter.