Brad Rose

San Andreas Fault

The epicenter of the quake must have been very near. Even from the convertible's front seat, Andrea felt the shudder run through her, as if she had swallowed its invisible tremor. A few seconds later, a gleaming red and white ambulance screamed past their car, making its way up the Pacific Coast Highway to the scene of an indeterminate tragedy. Andrea loved its wail of jagged urgency. She reached down into her handbag, which sat on the car's floor, drew a cigarette out, and pressed its clean white paper to her pink lipsticked lips. Casting a contemptuous glance at Richard, who sat blankly behind the steering wheel, the man whom she never really loved, despite the presence of the well-worn wedding band on her finger, she lit her cigarette and thought, “I want to quit, but I can't.”

Brad Rose is a writer who lives in Boston. Brad grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles—about a mile from where the Apollo space capsules were manufactured—and has lived most of his adult life in San Francisco and Boston. His work has appeared in Tattoo Highway, Boston Literary Magazine, Up and Under/QND Review, FutureCycle Poetry, Getting Something Read, Espresso Stories, and Six Sentences.