Short Story! Short Story!

August

I finally opened it, the folded note that antagonized me from its perch on my dresser. After thirty-six hours of willed ignorance and violent curiosity, I undid the mystery parchment’s crisp folds. It was from my mom. I don’t know why I was surprised.

“When is it ok to be ok?” it asked.

My breathing stalled. Never before has black ink made me so numb. I fear that I will only know the answer when I find my own glimmering key and see those pearly gates swing open. All answers will make themselves known in eternity.

September

Show me the line where the bay meets the sky, the horizon in its velvetine glory Can we stay on this September shore for the rest of time? Or at least for the night; I want to see the stars shine bright and collide on the galaxy’s highway We can sit and writhe as we know we can do nothing, absolutely nothing, as we rest on the grains of sand and realize that we are the grains of sand in the universe’s shoreline, absolutely nothing at all because we are so small and the stars’ accident was not our fault and there is no way we can help when we are all the way down here Is this how my mother feels?

I am the star in the Great Collision of the San Francisco Sky, so she must be the apathetic ant on the shoreline She tried to send me a message: a folded sheet of paper. It distracted me as I traveled at light speed. That is why I crashed into the blazing ball of light in the sky.

OCTOBER

Nannie made pumpkin bread, except she forgot the cinnamon. Don’t ask how a woman who needs help putting on her own bra and refuses to take a bath is able to bake pumpkin bread; I wouldn’t have an answer. Perhaps she will find this answer in her eternity. I think it’s nearing; the brain never waits for the body. Perhaps her mind is in her eternity now, and she is keeping these answers to herself.

I am proud of her for only forgetting the cinnamon I would expect her to forget the cardamom, too, and the temperature settings on the oven at least Was this her terminal lucidity? Was this her miracle of remembrance before she wields her glimmering key?

When she goes, I hope she will invite me Or, at the very least, write to me

November

“This November there seems to be nothing to say ” - Anne Sexton I can’t believe I turned eighteen

December

Oh, my digital diary! This Christmas, Nannie’s gift to me was my very own glimmering key. Sipping sweet tea, she showed me her lovely lavender latch-unlocker. It compliments my brand new bronze beauty so well and we will unlock our pearly gates together and we can ask eternity all of our questions!

January

After the doctor pronounced Nannie as passed, I told my mom I think that it is ok to be ok now. I think she believed me because my face beamed with peace, and I wiped the new year ’ s tears from her cheeks. I think I would like to have her there with me, in the resting place. I wish Nannie gave her a glimmering key, too, one of carved marble inlaid with lapis lazuli.

On my night of departure, I told Mom not to worry about Nannie and to go to the sandy shore of the San Francisco Bay, where she can see that shimmering spectacle in the sky I told her it would hurt to feel like an ant, but she mustn’t worry because I will write to her I will tell her all of the answers I find in eternity, I promise She won’t have to tuck any more creased papers housing cryptic questions under my door She won’t have to worry She won’t

Mom,

Eternity said that it is always ok to be ok once you enter the pearly gates