Member-only story
Fiction
The Tiger in the Night
An unemployed writer struggles to provide for his wife and sick child during the Great Depression.
Bailey Blockshire had not eaten in three days when he took his seat at the table by the window to write. It was not strange that he had not eaten. Most people couldn’t afford food these days.
The strange thing about today was that it was the eighty-fourth day since he’d been able to write. For a writer, it was suicide. In three months since The Yankee Post went bankrupt, Bailey was, for the first time, stuck. He’d hoped to work as a freelancer after losing his position at the Yankee. But now he’d run out of money for food.
Bailey had been luckier than his friends who’d lost their jobs, and far luckier than the millions of Americans who’d lost everything over the past six years. But luck didn’t buy groceries for his wife, Arabella, and their fourteen-month-old daughter, Ellie. Only his words, written and sold to a magazine, could help. Writing was the only life he’d ever known. And words wouldn’t come anymore.
Bailey rolled his ink pen through his fingers and stared at the blank page. He remembered a time when the words flowed. All he needed was one good story to sell and the check he received would buy food and pay the rent on…
