Joshua Chamberlain
I’m inside her and thrusting when screaming comes from the lawn across the street.
She goes to the window that looks down on the lawn and yanks it open wide. The August evening floods in, the air thick and soupy to breathe.
A man lays stretched out on the dead grass. A woman wails and pounds his chest. A kid—six, maybe seven—sits still on the porch, watching with all-seeing eyes.
“Should we do something?” I ask.
“Like what?” she says.
It’s dark by the time the cops show up. The squad car drenches the peeling paint with shades of red and blue. The cops squat beside the man, still motionless on the ground. One takes the woman back to the porch and sets her down with the kid. The other fetches a bag from the squad car and kneels back down by the man.
“I thought the sheriff said they weren’t giving out any more Narcan.”
“Can they do that?” I ask.
“They can do whatever they want.”
The man sits up and then the cops leave. The night settles back to the calm of cicadas and crickets trading harmonies.
I don’t feel much like fucking after that. I want to lie in bed, hold her. But she reaches for my cock and purrs.
“I didn’t finish,” she says.
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JOSHUA CHAMBERLAIN is a writer based in Los Angeles. His fiction has previously appeared in Orpheus Literary Magazine and Off Topic, while his stage play, THE MEN WHO DREW THE UNIVERSE, was nominated for Best World Premiere at the 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Josh’s screenplay, ALL STATIONS DISTRESS, was featured as a 2025 Script of the Week on the BlackList and placed as a finalist for the 2023 ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest. Josh has also directed several short films, which have been featured in various film festivals including the Malibu, Culver City, Marina Del Ray and Golden State Film Festivals.
