Damian Van Denburgh’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Prairie Schooner, Dark Mountain, Fourth Genre, Stone Canoe, Storyscape, and Matador Review, where his short story, “The Orphaning Light” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and has been a resident of the MacDowell Colony and the Millay Colony for the Arts. His occasional blog, Another Green Kitchen, is dedicated to instrumental music, sound art, and the places where art and activism intersect. For the last five years he has facilitated a memoir-writing workshop for people living with cancer at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center.
It was a Sunday, early evening, spring. New leaves shining in the trees along both sides of MacLellan Street forming a vivid, protective canopy. A current of regulated security glittering in the air, in the ordered rows of parked cars, the sheen of cleaned windows. Clayton Beale, his mind alert, his hands trembling, stood…
