Joshua Heston

These are the things we don’t say. The things we can’t say. The things we won’t say. My Basset hound, a friendly, dominating lad of only four, nuzzles into the pillow beside my head. Truth is, my dogs rule the house, which is fine. Truth is, my Basset is a strange boy who barks at ghosts so I like him next to me as I sleep. “Josh is too sensitive. He is an artist. A writer. He won’t fit in with the world.” That’s what my mom said about me years ago. In a world of doctors and lawyers and...

The rain poured down just beyond the garage doors, dirty cement glistening in the late, dark summertime somewhere between light and dusk. Bare incandescent lightbulb shown over saws and level, hammers, screws, nails, fishing rods, my dad’s red hammer. Old 1960s’ refrigerator, stocked with beer and leftovers, with a freezer desperately in need of defrosting hummed. It was July sometime in the early 1990s. I paused. Perhaps the twilight made this moment profound, though if someone had looked at...

Saturday morning and the mountain humidity is mounting, fog burning off from river lake below, hot late spring sun peeking through night clouds clearing as the minutes tick by. I’m still bemused by old turn-of-the-century tourist brochures touting the Ozarks’ “cooling summer breezes.” It’s only nine o’clock in the morning and I’ve already sweated through my shirt, confident it won’t be the last time today. Saturday morning markets are a lot of work. Just one year ago, StateoftheOzarks moved...