Ryan E. Felton

  • The Man Who Ran for God (pt. 4)

    IV. I Will Spue Thee out of My Mouth             They met not at any Waffle House but an Arby’s where two highways crossed. Dodd went alone, driving a rental car. He put on a red baseball cap and sunglasses before he went in. Now was not a good time to stop for selfies with…

  • The Man Who Ran for God (pt. 3)

    SELAH: I             In an office bigger than many men’s own homes sits a withering human being — white, male, hairless with crepe paper for skin. Fingers like rotting twigs press a button near his lap. There is a resulting buzz which summons another ancient man. They are both dressed in couture out of time…

  • The Man Who Ran for God (pt. 1)

    GENESIS I. In the Beginning Gideon Dodd, he was a preacher man. And during the first quarter of the twenty-first century in America, a preacher man with the gumption, charisma, booming voice, and winning smile of Gideon Dodd’s caliber could make a lucrative go of it. At forty-seven years old Dodd had long since been…

  • Implicated

    Implicated Imagine me, five years old, and scared to death to open my eyes — to take even the bitsiest peep — during prayers at the dinner table, at church services, or weddings. Was it some rule set by my God-fearing mother, a warning from a Sunday school teacher, or just basic intuition? Don’t look…

  • Tannenbaum

    The perfect little family pulled up in a burgundy Ford Pinto and toddled out in their snow boots onto the roadside. They were the seventeenth perfect little family to arrive that day. There was a red-nosed poppa, with his funny flap hat and trimmed mustache, and a blushing momma. A little boy and a littler…