101 Words

Having recently discovered her power of flight, Sayeh once again took to the sky outside her bedroom window. Downstairs, her parents carried out their mundane tasks, oblivious.

As she soared, her senses delighted in the wind’s gentle caress through her curls, the sun’s warm kiss across her cheeks, and the crisp sting of the chill air in her lungs. It felt so natural, as though humans were always meant to traverse the infinite heavens.

Returning from her excursion, Sayeh gently settled back into her crib. Less than a year on this Earth, and already she had freed herself of its limitations.

I taught Carol and Cindy to dog-paddle in the shallow end of the pool while the other freshman girls practiced their backstroke, compared bodies, and—catty as always—ignored their awkward classmates.

Until today.

I lined up teams at the starting blocks for a relay race. Expecting moans and eye rolls, I announced that Carol and Cindy would swim first across the shallow end: “Lanes 1-3-5, start when Carol reaches the other side, lanes 2-4-6 when Cindy gets there.”

I blew the starting whistle. As my dog-paddlers floundered along, I heard, “Go, Cindy! C’mon, Carol! Keep swimmin’!”

Gotta love ninth graders.

Five-year-old Jimmy called police cars woo woo cars.

“Woo woo car, Mama!” He’d cry excitedly when one passed. She thought it was cute.

Thirty-year-old Jimmy no longer finds them cute. Cops bring fear and change. Like now, as he speeds down the highway, four sirens and four sets of lights chasing him just because he shot his ex, her new boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s young son. He regrets all three now, especially the boy. Not that it matters.

Four more cars pull into a blockade two hundred yards ahead.

“Woo woo cars,” he whispers as he accelerates. Time to end this.

Everyone else had been sent home, but Byron remained.

He was the runner, the bullet, and the blade of the small kitchen showroom and warehouse; a place that hadn’t seen visitors for years. Blotches darkened the granite like storm clouds. Chunks of carpet turned, frayed, torn, agonizingly severed from groaning wood floors.

Each time a new order came in, he craved solitude. His breath hitched. A sick sweat tickled his neck.

Cutting time.

The croak of the blade dominated his dreams. The formica held tight until the blade bit down and through. A clean, vicious crack that reminded him of bones.

Yggdrasil. The world tree. That was what I called the old oak. I was a strange child. When I climbed, I was Ratatoskr, the messenger.

To get up I had to make a running jump, stepping on a round knobble of bark, then grabbing the first branch with both hands. I would clamber for a while, then rest, my back curving to match the shape of an ancient bough.

Sixty years have passed, and I’m home again. I no longer have to jump, which is some relief. I sit in my old spot and watch the clouds roll in. Ragnarok approaches.

By the way the jay in his yard kept squawking at him, Jake thought his mother had returned to life as a pesky bird picking up where she left off.

The bird’s cries grew more strident and she began pecking at the glass French doors as Jake tried to work by the dried out Christmas tree in his living room. Could be its flickering lights attracted the stupid bird much like a moth oblivious to the danger of a hot bulb.

Perhaps Jake should’ve peered into the bird’s opaque black eyes and seen danger himself as his tree began to smolder.