{"id":5346,"date":"2022-08-14T11:09:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T11:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2022-08-16T11:41:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T11:41:14","slug":"shoot-your-shot-by-rich-larson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5346","title":{"rendered":"Shoot your Shot by Rich Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Shoot your Shot<\/em><\/strong> by Rich Larson (<em>Analog<\/em>, September-October 2022) gets off to an entertaining start with its description of the story\u2019s coke-head narrator in a club bathroom:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>It\u2019s been a while since I done coke\u2014too expensive out East\u2014but before Dante left the club he gave me his last two grams and the rolled-up fiver he was using, I think as an apology for bailing. I forgot just how fucking good it feels.<br>\u201cYo,\u201d I say, pulling myself up to the sinks to make a new friend. \u201cHow\u2019s your night going?\u201d<br>My sink neighbor glances over, gives a bleary grin. \u201cYo,\u201d he says. \u201cYo, not bad.\u201d<br>\u201cHeard you pissin\u2019 while I was in the stall,\u201d I say. \u201cTerrific stream. Gotta say it. Real powerful-sounding.\u201d<br>The guy looks confused for a second, then raises his soapy hand for a tentative fist bump. \u201cThanks, bro.\u201d<br>I bump it, then start checking my nostril hairs for snowcaps. Clean.&nbsp; p. 61<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Subsequently, the sink neighbour talks about how he was just talking to \u201cthe most beautiful girl\u201d, a \u201cdark-haired chick with the silver jacket\u201d. He says he is going to ask for her number, and the narrator assures him that he will succeed . . . before promptly going out and picking up the woman himself. <br>After some conversation in the club she suggests they go outside, and they eventually end up in an alleyway. They kiss, and then, when the narrator suggests they do some coke, he notices that (spoiler) her words aren\u2019t matching her actions, that she is talking from a hole in her throat, and that her mouth is peeling back to show something like broken razors. The narrator can\u2019t flee as the kiss has numbed his face and body.<br>This reads like a short character sketch lifted from the writer\u2019s notes and given a random horror ending.<br>* (Mediocre). 1,500 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shoot your Shot by Rich Larson (Analog, September-October 2022) gets off to an entertaining start with its description of the story\u2019s coke-head narrator in a club bathroom: It\u2019s been a while since I done coke\u2014too expensive out East\u2014but before Dante left the club he gave me his last two grams and the rolled-up fiver he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[309],"tags":[21,539,33,1235,310,1234,1022,12],"class_list":["post-5346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rich-larson","tag-21","tag-539","tag-analog","tag-monster","tag-rich-larson","tag-shapeshifter","tag-short-short","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5375,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions\/5375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}