Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober Season 2. This is episode 12 for Sunday the twelfth of October, 2025.
It’s Not Just About Your DNA
by Elizabeth Guilt
I peer into the shaving mirror. That spot's got larger; it's now an angry red dash across my forehead. I poke at it. The skin breaks, with a thin, hard glint.
This used to happen to Dad. A bar fight, he said. Someone shoved him headfirst into a stack of pint jugs. Years later, when I was born, splinters of glass were still working their way out.
They always said I was my father's son. I have his quick temper, his broad fists.
The tiny scratch of glass falls into the sink. I wash it away, just like he did.
Little splinters of this story are true. When I was a kid, glass really did come out of my Dad's forehead occasionally. He's the nicest man in the world, and he ended up with a faceful of glass in a car accident. One of the things he passed on to me is a lifelong belief in seatbelts.