Issue 2 cover

Baby Edward

by Jeremy C. Shipp

Issue 2 :: Spring 2008 (stories)

There's more than one way to kill a dream.

My dream is a baby boy named Edward, and he's not allowed in the house. He lives in the VW Bus in my backyard. I keep the windows closed and the doors locked, which doesn't serve any real purpose, obviously. But I like to keep the key on a chain around my neck. I like to wear it under my dress shirt, coat, and tie. When I first put it on in the morning, the metal is cold against my chest. By the time I'm tapping at my keyboard, inventing new ways to politely coerce resources from suspecting citizens, I'm cold on the inside. Anytime I want, I can put the key in the lock, twist, and end this. But I don't.

You might ask, where's the mother during all this? Well, I hate to shatter your notions of family, but there is no mother.

I made Edward.

And he's mine.

Mine.

...

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"Baby Edward" is roughly 2600 words.

Jeremy C. Shipp's written creations inhabit various magazines, anthologies, and drawers. They include over thirty publications, like ChiZine, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, Hub Magazine, Bare Bone, The Harrow, and Until Someone Loses an Eye. While preparing for the forthcoming collapse of civilization, Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately-haunted Victorian farmhouse. He's currently working on many stories and novels and is losing his hair, but not because of the ghosts. Vacation, his first published novel, debuted this year from Raw Dog Screaming Press. You can visit his online homes at myspace.com/… and hauntedhousedressing.com.