"Adam’s Side of the Gate" by Finnian Burnett—Our December 2023 Gold Medal Winner
“...a thoroughly satisfying story in so few words.”
“This author permitted readers to identify with the constant fluctuations of good-bad, beautiful-ugly, and tragic-hopeful relationships we experience in life; making something unbelievable feel real.”
“...bravo. (The author has) complete mastery of (the story), beginning to end.”
“I was stunned by this story. In fact, I was moved to tears. The author has created such empathy and understanding between characters without really laying judgement on anyone. It is an honest look at the pain and beauty and also normalcy of being a human.”
Meet Finnian
Finnian Burnett is a writer whose work explores the intersections of the human body, mental health, and gender identity. They are a recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts grant, a finalist in the 2023 CBC nonfiction prize, and a 2024 Pushcart nominee.
Their work appears in Blank Spaces Magazine, Reflex Press, The Daily Sci-Fi, and more. Their two novellas-in-flash, The Clothes Make the Man and The Price of Cookies, are available through Ad Hoc Fiction and Off Topic Publishing respectively.
When not writing or teaching, Finnian enjoys cold weather hiking, Star Trek, and cat memes.
Adam’s Side of the Gate
an excerpt of Finnian’s winning story
Adam is sitting outside again. I see him through the kitchen window, sitting sideways against the fenceless gate in our front yard, knees curled, his flushed cheeks earning crisscross impressions from the chain link.
The first time I found him there, shaking and crying, he’d said: “Pretend I’m in prison.”
“I don’t have time for this, Adam,” I replied, walking around the freestanding gate to pull his arm, trying to coax him back into the house.
“That’s not how it works,” he’d choked through tears. “This is my side of the gate. You have to pretend I’m in prison.”
I don’t see a prison. I see my grown husband huddled against a gate. I dry my hands, hang the dish towel, glance at my watch. My mom will be here in thirty minutes. An hour after that, Adam’s parents land and shortly after, my sister, Sandy, and her husband, Chad. Her normal husband who knows how to use the ride-sharing apps to get the whole group safely here from the airport.
Chad works at the lumber mill in their small town in BC. He tips well, talks to luggage handlers, and always brings presents for the parents. The right presents. When Sandy brought Chad to Newfoundland the first time, back when they were engaged, my mother said it was “so nice Sandy found a man who loves people as much as she does.”
Adam loves people too, I wanted to say, too much. Reads their stories and cries about strangers in car accidents and children sent to foster care.
“I don’t have time for this,” I mutter. I slip into boots and walk across the yard to the gate.
The last time they visited, Chad said he could take the gate down for me. “If you aren’t going to build a fence,” he added.
“It’s on to-do list,” I’d told him.
I slide to the ground on the other side of the gate, hands curved around the cement posts. The damp cold seeps into my denim skirt. I’ll have to change before company arrives. Another thing to do. “Adam, come inside.”
“I can’t stop thinking about them,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.
“Who?” My fingers curl through the links, two faces against the cold metal dividing us. I don’t know what’s what triggered him. A building collapse? A prisoner dead at the Pen? Another school shooting in the States? His therapist instructed us to limit the news, to help him stop doomscrolling. But I can’t protect him from everything. Last year, Adam read that extreme heat makes baby birds jump the nest before they can fly. “I can feel their terrified plummeting,” he still says, almost every day.
…
to read the rest of the story, order your copy of the March 2024 issue.
