Thomas Allbaugh

Thomas Allbaugh writes and teaches fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California. His work has appeared in a number of journals, and he has published a novel (Apocalypse TV), a collection of short stories (Subtle Man Loses his Day Job and other stories), and a chapbook of poetry (The View from January). Currently, he is at work on a grief memoir and an accompanying collection of poems, tentatively titled Poems for a Coming Shore, following the loss of his youngest son to suicide in 2017. His short story, "A Table Story," is drawn from some of that experience.

An Excerpt from “A Table Story”

After they took away the chairs and the table with the permanent food stains and scratch marks where their son always ate, he remained in the empty dining room thinking about it. You could always replace the furniture. But not the marks. You could buy distressed jeans but not distressed furniture, unless it was someone else’s at Goodwill. Then it was someone else’s history, family.

Most of the house felt empty. He brought a folding chair in from the hallway where the open cabinet was empty of towels, opened the folding chair in the middle of the floor, and sat down. He rubbed his elbow. His collar bone had healed; he still had some pain in the morning when the air was cold. After about six months, it was mostly just aching in his shoulder.

The call that she was coming for the table had left him out of sorts and he hadn’t slept. He wasn’t sure if she would come when they took the furniture. And then she didn’t come. He glanced at the window. Perhaps he would use a tray table now.

She had not taken their bed, with the memory foam mattress that held their wounds night after night.

He rubbed his eyes. The folding chair wasn’t comfortable. They were made for auditoriums.

Read more of “A Table Story” in Solum Journal Volume III.