Percival, Texas

Abstract

The five short stories contained herein are the result of an obsession of mine that came about during my first semester at Colorado State University. It is an obsession about a small town in West Texas that does not exist in the real world. In my mind over the past several years, Percival, Texas, has consumed me with its expanding population of people and the stories they have to tell me, stories that I have felt compelled to put down in writing. Although I have started dozens of stories about Percival during my time in the creative writing program, these are the ones that haunted me the most, with characters who kept calling me back for another visit, and another, and so on, demanding as much from me as I could give so that their stories of loss could be properly told. All five stories are about loss in various forms: stories of lost love, loved ones lost, and the loss of innocence. But somehow, in the desert wastelands of Percival, Texas, in the dry heat, dust clouds, and among the lonesome souls, there is hope, and that is why I keep going back. My hope is that I have represented these characters in a way that is true to how I understand them, as people who, although desperate to hold onto what they value most, will end up standing strong in the face of losing it.