Story Details
Categories Fantasy Magical Realism Contemporary Fantasy
Every step we take, every decision made, results in a path not taken. These realizations are often difficult for us, bringing regret and a longing for the chance not taken. Even more difficult to bear is the day our children escape into a future filled with a multiverse of failures and pain.
Author Details
Tammy Komoff The Hole in the Hedge
Tammy Komoff’s fiction has recently appeared in All World’s Wayfarer, Across the Margins, and Bards & Sages Magazine. She is currently studying for her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida. When she isn’t writing or studying, Tammy can be found frantically chasing her headstrong girls around the house. Story Notes for The Hole in the Hedge: I spent much of the pandemic chasing after my youngest daughter as she tried to escape through a broken fence in a neglected corner of the garden. My husband joked that one of these days, she’d outrun me, and we’d never see her again. That is where this story was born. But, it grew on late nights in dark rooms as I rocked her to sleep, knowing I wouldn’t have many more of these moments. The days are long, but the years are short. It’s a saying young parents hear a lot, and it’s true. The bad moments, the tears and injuries, the illness, and tantrums seem to last forever. While the good moments, gentle kisses on your cheek, whispered I love you’s in your ear, childhood triumphs great and small happen so fast, there’s no time to grab hold and savor them. That’s why I wrote The Hole in the Hedge, to put into words the deep longing I have to make everything stop, hold my girls close. And to grapple with the hidden truths of parenthood: To love your children is to let them grow and ultimately let them go.
The Hole in the Hedge, by Tammy Komoff
Author Details
Tammy Komoff The Hole in the Hedge
Tammy Komoff’s fiction has recently appeared in All World’s Wayfarer, Across the Margins, and Bards & Sages Magazine. She is currently studying for her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida. When she isn’t writing or studying, Tammy can be found frantically chasing her headstrong girls around the house. Story Notes for The Hole in the Hedge: I spent much of the pandemic chasing after my youngest daughter as she tried to escape through a broken fence in a neglected corner of the garden. My husband joked that one of these days, she’d outrun me, and we’d never see her again. That is where this story was born. But, it grew on late nights in dark rooms as I rocked her to sleep, knowing I wouldn’t have many more of these moments. The days are long, but the years are short. It’s a saying young parents hear a lot, and it’s true. The bad moments, the tears and injuries, the illness, and tantrums seem to last forever. While the good moments, gentle kisses on your cheek, whispered I love you’s in your ear, childhood triumphs great and small happen so fast, there’s no time to grab hold and savor them. That’s why I wrote The Hole in the Hedge, to put into words the deep longing I have to make everything stop, hold my girls close. And to grapple with the hidden truths of parenthood: To love your children is to let them grow and ultimately let them go.
