Today she is wearing yellow. Yellow dress, yellow hat, and a buttercup yellow scrunchie around her ankle. Today is a good day.
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Tag: grief
Movies Can’t Show What is Like to Live with a Dragon by Ann Yuan
The dragon must be hundreds of years old. She leans on the door frame and spits a flame just big enough to light her cigarette.
“Don’t expect me to fight for you,” she says.
I look at the no-smoking sign on the door and tell her I don’t expect that kind of thing from a roommate. Game of Thrones is so overrated. Never be a fan.
She nods, passes by me, and walks into the apartment as though she owns this place.
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Timeless Sympathy by Hana Carolina
Our house was what dreams were made of—a hazy vision of lost grandeur, countless rooms, and long corridors leading to an airy parlour. A crumbling gilded ceiling glittered in the light seeping through tall windows. A polished table with a deep, glassy sheen, where I sat my laptop, stood on the elegant curve of Queen Anne’s legs. Georgian bookcases were crowded with dusty oil lamps, their glass chimneys catching the cold, sterile shine of fairy LED lights. A heavy marble fireplace, its mantle cluttered with birthday cards, roared into the night.
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Still Speaking by Christopher Ananias
I sit among the dandelions by a black glimmering tombstone. It shines bright and final—never a dull moment. A picture of an old woman glares at me—her trespasser. The sprig of fresh lilacs in the bronze vase speaks of a loved one. A dog stands on the road staring at me.
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A Eulogy for Us by Darleine Abellard
The funeral had been over for hours. The condolences had been murmured, hands shaken, and hollow nods exchanged. Tyler sat alone in the quiet living room, staring at the floor like the right combination of thoughts might finally break him open. However, he could only think about one thing: the clock on the wall ticked too loud. Each second landed sharp and mechanically like a hammer in the silence. The steady, unshaken rhythm, indifferent to the weight of grief pressing against Tyler’s ribs, was too precise for this raw moment. He tried to focus on each tick, breathing in and out on every other one. Time was moving forward, unaware that his best friend, Patrick Andrews, would never move with it again.
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At the Barn in Winter by Michael Barrington
She was asleep now, her head leaning on his outstretched arm, her delicate, dainty fingers finally relaxing their grip on his huge, calloused hand. The musky scent of her beautiful, long hair, she was so proud of it, stirred up old memories of happier times. He knew every inch of her face, her lovely, big brown eyes that always seemed so full of wonderment, her delicate lips…. He was afraid to move for fear of awakening her, but he needed to relieve his numbing arm. And to do so quickly before being forced to make some abrupt movement that might disturb her. It was pitch black…. He mustn’t turn on the light.
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Heir by Sam Graveney
Samuel Waggoner never used his own products. People admired that about him; Waggoner’s Wigs were so good, had he used them, no one would ever have known. An Australian, he fought in Vietnam and emerged from the jungles with a secret ingredient that turned dried-out hair from barbers’ floors into manes which shone like honey and lasted and lasted. He built a wig empire, became a rich man, he married a stage actress, Harriet, for love, he bought a big house outside Darwin. He was totally bald.
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Shadow by T H White
Tom Mitchell had lived alone for longer than he could remember. His wife, Lily, had passed away a decade ago, and their children had long since moved away, caught in lives of their own. The house, once filled with laughter and warmth, now echoed with a quiet, unrelenting stillness. Even the walls seemed to breathe differently, like they were holding their breath, waiting for something – or someone.
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The Bone Reader of Tucson by Dana Wall
The bones spoke to Angelina the way other women heard gossip over garden fences. Snake vertebrae whispered of rain coming from the east. Coyote teeth predicted claim jumpers and cattle thieves. But it was the human bones that spoke loudest, and those she kept hidden beneath her floorboards, wrapped in red silk stolen from a dead Chinese merchant’s shop. Each bundle reminded her of her own lost child, the daughter whose bones she’d never found to read.
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Meant for the Dead by Susan Jennifer Polese
Envision a seamless sky lining a hillside speckled with white stones. The air surrounds them, almost scentless, incensed lightly by pungent moss. Gaze ahead as the lush hills overlap, take hold of one another, layered green and hazel veils each saying to the next: Spring. Translucent Spring. And I could see through it and taste it as anyone can at seventeen. Every day seemed to be like this one, then, endless and shady, but on this Tuesday morning curiosity did more than lead me. We ran. Run with me now.
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