The way Little Miss Perfect tells it, you'd think I was head of a gang of street thugs when I was a kid. We weren't thugs, we were twelve. All we wanted was some prize money, or at least a bit of ... [+]
David Drury lives in Seattle, Washington. He has a master's degree in Christian Studies and has been kicked out of every casino in Las Vegas. Read more of his stories at daviddruryauthor.com. "The Brighter Light" is in Short Circuit #1, Short Édition's quarterly review.
I was chasing my little brother through the park at dusk. The whole park was filled with restless families waiting for the fireworks to start. My brother halted in his grass-stained diaper. "God lives there!" he said, pointing to the church across the street. But, really, he was pointing to the tent city in the parking lot of the church across the street, which was wrapped in sagging Christmas lights. Then my brother was off and running again. Before I knew it, he was ten blankets away with somebody's firefly jar. He reached in and got hold of one and squeezed until its bulb went out. A change