Kent State

A Short Story

In an attempt to monetise any given amount of talent I may have, I've decided to release a few pieces of writing behind a paywall. It may backfire badly, and no one will ever read this work, but I’ve been writing and creating stuff for years and years, and in that time, I have made enough to buy a used car, with 2012 plates and no MOT. So here I am, with my cap in hand.

Here’s a wintry short story entitled ‘Kent State’, based on something I actually did once (although my journey to see where the sixties ended was taken alone, yet it was in heavy snow). A lot of stuff in this one is autobiographical.

I wrote this back in the summer. I guess I’m one of those people who thinks about any season I’m not currently in. So in summer, I was thinking about winter. Now, in deep midwinter, I’m thinking about the spring and summer. I never tend to write about the season I’m in; it’s always the complete opposite.

Fittingly, as we stand at the end of 2025, ‘Kent State’ is a story about endings.

The end of a relationship, the end of an era, the end of freedom.

I started the year with a short story on this Substack - the experimental ‘Mono no Aware’ - and so I thought it’d be good to end it with another…