101 Words

I was twelve when my grandfather suffered a heart attack. My mother wanted to reach our hometown at the earliest to be by his side, although his condition was stable. My father booked the following day’s flight tickets for us to travel. As my summer holidays were then underway, I didn’t want to miss out on daily football with friends. The next day, on our way to the airport, I pleaded with Mom to cancel our trip and postpone it to the next month. Reluctantly, she agreed. Three days later, my grandfather passed away. I couldn’t look into my mom’s eyes.

For once, Barry was proud of himself: 332 lbs down to 291 in three months was a real accomplishment.

It wasn’t easy. He missed his favorite foods, but he knew eating healthier was worth it, along with drinking water and walking.

He was doing just that one day when a pickup sped by him. The male driver yelled, “Fatass!” Then a girl yelled, “Boobs bigger than mine!” while laughing.

Barry stopped, confidence shattered. Ignorant jerks, he thought, but his hurt was stronger. He walked home, dejected, needing comfort from his only friends.

Two months later, he was back up to 317.

We four kids sat mesmerized, admiring your strength as you mastered the roiling waves with a crawl, confidently slicing through whitecaps.

The beach was our playpen for countless summers until we were teens and ventured out sailing or crabbing with friends. We ran up the quahog drive to the garage and cranked the three-legged Maytag, squeezing the ocean from our towels.

It wasn’t until we were grown that we discovered the truth about those morning swims. You went out just so far, knowing you could always touch bottom and thrust yourself forward with another compelling push.

We laughed for hours over that.

Every day is a new game. Today, I must choose the real bedroom.

The sparse one beckons—nothing confusing—but the other’s ugly bedspread makes me pause. Objects indicate occupancy; that this bedroom’s real. I frown. I don’t want it.

“Help!” I call.

A woman comes. Her face isn’t familiar, but I feel we’re connected, important to each other somehow. Suddenly my mind clicks and I’m the most myself I’ve been in forever. I know her. Then I remember. I’m transient.

I grasp her arm. “You must understand,” I blurt before I vanish again into no one. “Sometimes I know you.”

When Jackie served chicken for the second time that week, Ben groaned and began clucking like a chicken. His little sister Olivia asked, “Why are you doing that?”

Ben replied, “Because we’re eating chicken, stupid. Cluck, cluck.”

Olivia burst into tears. She had never put it together that the chicken on her plate had once been a living animal. She was horrified.

As Jackie comforted her daughter, a light bulb went off in her head. She asked everyone to hold hands, and together, they gave thanks to the animal whose life was sacrificed so that they could have a nice meal.

She stops breathing in the dead of winter night. All that remains is her empty shell. Time lingers with the weight of sadness lying heavy on my chest. Snowflakes fall down with silent grace, melting into the ground as if they had never existed at all.

The silence breaks. Choirs of angels, blessed with eternity, search for the soft ringing of bells. I see her among them, brightest of all. The world now seems still in death, until the sun looms in the distance and pushes the world onwards. I am not ready for the future that comes with the day.