As The Night The Day

By Terence Patrick Hughes

About the Work

Set in the uneasy quiet of a rural New England town waking up from winter, As The Night The Day confronts the way violence cracks a community open — first softly, then all at once. The story follows a narrator who stumbles upon the aftermath of a hit-and-run, and the moral pressure that follows: the sickening knowledge of what happened, the proximity to it, and the question of what a person owes the truth when silence is easier.

Terence Patrick Hughes builds the piece with his signature restraint: grounded observations, a tight lens on place, and the slow unfurling of human consequence. The story reads like a bruise forming — quiet, dark, and impossible to ignore.

Publication History

• Published in: Press Pause Press

• Link: https://www.presspausepress.org/terence-patrick-hughes-as-the-night-the-day

• Year: 2025

Excerpt

THE KID GOT HIT ON THE BRIDGE BY A VEHICLE. My first guess is a sedan or jeep, traveling at enough speed to knock him ten or so feet in the air and then into a tumble another fifteen down the embankment to the creek’s edge. A couple inches of early spring snow covered him up for a day or so, but even with the melt you could see by the streaks of blood running uphill that the boy tried to crawl for his life back up to the road.

Critical Notes

Hughes captures the small-town moral landscape with exquisite restraint — the kind of story that lingers long after the page.
— Press Pause Reader Response

Related Works

If you connected with As The Night The Day, you may also like:

• Death Became Them (small-town mortality + sober voice)

• Standing on the Edge of Some Crazy Cliff (tense civic drama + human fracture)

Script / Reprint Requests

For permissions or inquiries: admin@terencepatrickhughes.com

Image Credit

Image generated using AI, art-directed to reflect the atmosphere of As The Night The Day.