Open Stories — Short Fiction by Hank Redding

In September 1865, a paroled Confederate private is denied land in Galveston and walks inland along the margin where systems no longer record him. As labor, distance, and exposure strip away what he carries, the story follows endurance without promise and the quiet cost of continuing when nothing asks you to stop.

In 1881, three strangers arrive separately in a dying Nevada mining town, each carrying a fragment of the same photograph. As the town’s suppressed past begins to surface, memory, guilt, and mercy press forward without explanation or verdict, asking only what it means to remember what was meant to stay buried.

A Western short story about distance traveled without acknowledgment. A father arrives without explanation, and years later a son begins to understand what was passed down—not through words, but through presence, attention, and what was quietly witnessed.

Set in the 1990s, Out of the Blue follows a man caught in a familiar cycle of chance encounters, connection, and quiet unraveling. As relationships form, dissolve, and repeat without clear cause, the story examines loneliness, momentum, and the moments that alter a life without offering explanation. What remains is not resolution, but recognition.