I Read Stories: Sleep by Gary Moshimer

 

Sleep by Gary Moshimer in Milk Candy Review

Bobby’s mother has died. He’s autistic, and has the compulsion to count, to account, to perform actions in numerical sequences. As he goes through the funeral this is how he copes. This is how he has to act.

Everything is wrong, her face was made wrong by the embalmer, and the photograph is wrong. His cousin Charley takes him outside and they smoke a joint and he still has to count, count until everything is accounted for. And to do this without his mother.

Read This: Short, razor-sharp exploration of autism, compulsion, grief and guilt
Don’t Read This: All of us are compelled, we just don’t see it