Short Stories

Category: Uncategorized

  • Hard Ground

    “To Our Hero with the Cape” With love and life — thank you, Daisy.

    HARD GROUND Wildflowers that push up through rock

    Hard Ground

    A short story, with a tone poem and narration

    Listen to the tone poem

    Play this while you read, or after. It follows the story from the cradle song to the end.

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    Listen to the story

    Prefer to listen? Here is the story read aloud (11:20, narrated with an AI voice). The written story follows below.

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    Her sister-in-law had announced that the baby would be named Daisy, too, for the wildflowers that kept pushing up through hard ground. Daisies were her father’s favorite flower, and she brought some whenever she visited his grave. Since the draft notices went out, families had been counting days, and whispering about substitutes. Daisy was grateful that she could look forward to her baby niece’s arrival instead of planning for a farewell. A little blanket with a daisy pattern lay on a shelf, and she draped it over her arm because the cart was full. She added a hat and socks for the winter months, though it was only June. In the music box aisle she wound several. The first was too lively for sleeping. The second had a slower tune, but its lyrics suited adults. The last item on the shelf was a toy piano with a few keys. Perhaps her niece could start as soon as she learned to use her fingers.

    In the long checkout line Daisy could not resist pressing the keys. She taught piano for a living, but her passion was composing, and before the line moved, the beginning of a cradle song had come to her.

    She arrived fifteen minutes early to the baby shower and helped her very pregnant sister-in-law set the table and dust the windowsills. On one sill a spider was weaving a web. Her sister-in-law feared spiders, yet Daisy could not crush it. She lifted it with a paper towel, wiped away the web, and carried it to the far wall of the back yard. “You should be safe here,” she said, and went back inside.

    One by one the guests set down their gifts. Five boxes of diapers. Three cases of wipes. Oil, lotion, blankets of every design. The baby was set for the year, Daisy thought. Or they could open a daycare.

    Her brother Damien arrived half an hour late, which was unlike him. Instead of his usual beaming smile, he pressed his lips together. He thanked everyone politely but did not work the room. Again and again he drew a letter from his shirt pocket, glanced at it, and put it away before anyone could read the envelope. Daisy was so distracted that she called guests by the wrong names and lost her train of thought, and finally she retreated to wash dishes.

    After the last guest left, Daisy could not wait any longer.

    “What’s in that letter, Damien?”

    “I’ve been drafted. I report in two weeks.”

    “Two weeks? That’s when the baby is due.”

    “And all she might know of her father is a headstone,” he said, and wept. Daisy held him, just as they had held each other when they were told that their father, a captain, was not coming home.

    She took the letter and read it. “I’ll go.”

    “You can’t. You won’t even step on a spider.”

    “The notice says a drafted person may name a family member to serve in their place. I can run, I can fit into the smallest spaces, and I can learn to shoot. What I can’t do is be little Daisy’s dad.”

    Damien lunged for the notice. Daisy dropped, rolled, and squeezed her small body between two shelves. “You dropped a pen in here,” she called. “I’m using it to sign my name.”

    “You’ll regret this when you come out,” he threatened, his voice shaking.

    “You’re welcome,” said Daisy, and wrote her name. When she came out, her brother and sister-in-law hugged her, unable to speak. Then Damien signed his consent.

    The reporting instructions allowed identification, toiletries, and whatever else fit in one small canvas pack. Daisy returned to the shopping center, where the sporting goods store had become a soldier’s shop since the draft. On a shelf hung a pack just like her father’s. If it was good enough for him, she thought, and bought it. Next came socks, because on one of their few hikes together her father had told her how much comfortable socks mattered to marching soldiers. She bought several pairs, in case another recruit forgot. At her favorite stationery store she bought a notebook, manuscript paper, and pens. Now I can write letters home, she thought, and send little Daisy her song when it’s finished.

    The baby came the morning before Daisy reported. She weighed only five pounds but cried loud and clear. After her bath, Daisy wrapped her in the daisy blanket, and she slept. Damien, a professional photographer, took a picture, framed it, and handed it to Daisy. “We’ll all be praying for you.” She tucked it into her pack. As the bus was pulling out next morning, Daisy took it out and held it on her knee.

    Within three weeks Daisy was the top runner in her women’s regiment, tied with a girl named Violet. They ran uphill and downhill with fifty-pound packs. Daisy had run marathons, but her first run with a heavy pack left her winded. When Violet seemed to float past her, Daisy ignored the pain in her leg and ran to catch up. Soon they were at the front together, trading stories and jokes so the run felt less like running toward death. It struck Daisy as ironic that the army let them bring so little but made them carry so much.

    Routines comforted her. She was glad to wake early, make her bed, and clean the cabin, as she always had at home. Her father had made them rise at sunrise, make their beds, exercise, and start schoolwork. After he was gone she had kept the routine, and she taught the same discipline to her students.

    She learned to shoot at targets, including scarecrows. She could hit the mark, but it made her sick. The hardest exercise was carrying a teammate. Daisy was petite, with delicate hands. When Violet played the unconscious one, Daisy nearly twisted her fingers hauling her up, and her arms shook so badly that she almost dropped her. “Careful,” Violet laughed. “You don’t want to drop your little namesake when you go home to visit.” Embarrassed, Daisy shouldered her pack every night after lights-out and did bodyweight exercises until her arms grew strong. I can’t drop a teammate, she told herself, and I can’t leave one hurt while I run for help. Despite her determination, she dreaded deployment and longed for home.

    After two months the regiment was deployed to rescue civilians. The running and lifting paid off. They carried heavy supplies up flights of stairs and led people out of burned buildings and blockaded territory. By night Daisy was too exhausted to write home.

    Once, she and Violet climbed the side of a building to reach four siblings, all under twelve. The oldest girl clutched her youngest brother, a baby of three months. She wept as Daisy and Violet pried her fingers loose, because he was dead. Helping her down the rope ladder, Daisy cried tears of rage at a war that was taking so many children’s futures.

    That evening Daisy could hardly eat. Violet, who played viola in the regiment’s small band, knew Daisy needed every bite and asked her to teach her the cradle song. As Daisy hummed and showed her the fingerings, she pictured the baby’s round cheeks and felt her light body on the daisy blanket. I have to keep fighting, she told herself, if only so I can go home to my family. She began to eat.

    Over the following weeks their missions edged closer to the front. Gunfire became a daily sound, and one teammate nearly stepped on a landmine before the regiment’s dog barked. Above her cot, Daisy had pinned a picture from Damien of little Daisy gripping a corner of the daisy blanket with one hand while hitting the keys of the toy piano with the other. Little Daisy would be six months old now, Daisy thought. Maybe I’ll see her first birthday.

    One morning during drills Daisy and Violet heard a scream. Two enemy soldiers had dragged a young woman and her daughter into an alley. The girls sprinted forward, struck the men in the groin, and seized their rifles. As they raised them, the men pulled the civilians in front as shields.

    “Drop those guns and we’ll let them go. Otherwise they die.” One drew a knife and held it to the child’s neck. After a moment of stillness, Daisy and Violet laid down their rifles, one at a time. The knife lowered. The men let go to retrieve their weapons.

    Violet ran to check the mother and child. Daisy saw the glint of a rifle barrel rising behind Violet’s neck, aimed at her back. She ran and shoved her friend aside. She heard a shot, felt a searing pain, and knew no more.

    Daisy woke to the smell of antiseptic and a throbbing in her right arm. I must change position, she thought, and turned to the right. There was no arm there.

    A week later the doctor said she would go home that afternoon. She would have welcomed the news from anyone but him, because being released on his diagnosis made her a disabled veteran. Where had Violet been all week? No one had visited. Perhaps what she had read about war was true, and she was only an ID number, discarded when no longer useful. And she had thought Violet was her friend. What would she do at dawn now, if she couldn’t make her bed, exercise, or practice piano? How could she finish the cradle song with no right hand to play the melody?

    Down the hall a keyboard sounded. When did they put a keyboard in the hospital? She followed the sound. The doctor sat at a digital piano, playing folk tunes from his hometown.

    “Want to play something, Miss?”

    “I don’t know,” Daisy said as she sat on the bench, her left hand hovering over the keys.

    “Sure you do. You still have a good hand. My daughter was born with one arm, and she’s the best left-hand pianist I know.”

    “Okay.” Daisy played the cradle song. After a few bars she wanted to quit, because the song only made her miss her right hand. Then a viola took up the melody, joined by a flute, a trumpet, a fiddle, and a clarinet. Her left hand found a bass line beneath them and kept finding the notes to the end.

    “It’s beautiful,” she said, turning around. Behind her stood the regiment, smiling and clapping.

    “Sorry we couldn’t come until now,” Violet said. “The enemy nearly took the town, but we pushed them back.”

    “And we have gifts to send you home with,” said the commander. The fiddle player gave Daisy a wrapped box. Inside were a good pen, manuscript paper, a book of left-hand piano music, and Violet’s arrangement of the cradle song for the regiment. At the bottom lay an envelope holding Daisy’s honorable discharge.

    “Daisy, thank you for your spirit, courage, sacrifice, and devotion to your comrades and your country,” the commander said, and pinned a medal on her. Attached to it was another envelope, holding a drawing of a caped soldier wearing Daisy’s face, signed, Violet said, by the mother and child Daisy had saved.


    Companion Poem

    Elegy for a Right Hand

    With you I opened my heart to play,
    A tune that ran and danced and leapt.
    With you I took a pen and signed,
    My name to serve, my life to give,
    In defense of our rights to speak, to live, to pray.

    An itch, a throb, sniffles and sobs,
    Cannot be scratched, dulled, or dried.
    Your delicate hand, your once-quick fingers,
    Are gone and replaced by a cold metal limb,
    That grips too hard, but slips when turning doorknobs.

    My handwriting slides, crooked across the page,
    My body leans left, each step halting and short.
    My niece cries when held with my left arm,
    But smiles when I play her the cradle song,
    Which I composed for her, before she knew her age.

    Though I can no longer feel the smooth piano keys,
    The comrade I saved is alive and well.
    I can still write songs that move the heart,
    And push the stroller to playgrounds and parks,
    And raise my hand among the free.

    Listen to the elegy

    The poem read aloud (1:04, narrated with an AI voice).

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    Companion Song

    Daisy’s Shopping Rush

    Listen to the song

    Music and lyrics by Judith Lung, sung with an AI voice. The lyrics follow the player.

    Player not showing? Listen on Clyp.

    Lyrics

    Verse 1
    A bottle of lotion to moisten the skin,
    A box of diapers to keep the baby dry.
    A blanket with pretty daisies all around,
    The wild flowers that keep pushing through hard ground.
    A toy piano for her little fingers,
    Just the right gift for her music to begin.

    Refrain
    War takes our futures away,
    A price that we all must pay.

    Verse 2
    A canvas pack like the one my father knew,
    Four pairs of warm socks for marching in the war.
    A notebook to write letters to those I love,
    And prayers for grace and protection from above.
    Staff paper to pen a gentle cradle song,
    To sweet little Daisy, I’ll play it for you.

    Refrain
    War takes our futures away,
    A price that we all must pay.

    Verse 3
    A medal to honor defending my land,
    Sheet music for left hand from all my comrades.
    A score my friend arranged of my cradle song,
    For the band to play when my pain was too strong.
    A child’s drawing of a soldier with my face,
    For love and life I stand, and I raise my hand.

    Final refrain
    What war cannot take away,
    Are hope and the friends who stay.

  • Passing Notes

    Passing Notes

    A camera takes one photo,
    One moment caught in time.
    Is a single click, a snapshot,
    Enough to call it a crime?

    A video has a beginning, an end,
    An order, a story, a plot.
    If you had seen what really happened,
    Would you have called me on the spot?

    He tapped me twice on the shoulder,
    And slipped a note in my hand.
    Seeing a heart drawn on the corner,
    I thought I was doing a friend.

    Before I passed the note along,
    You snatched it out of sight.
    I never saw what was written inside,
    Was that fifty score my own plight?

    With no camera to take a photo,
    No video left to show, 
    I have neither snapshot nor story –
    Just my word, plain and slow.

    If a picture is worth a thousand words,
    Would you believe the thousand and one that flowed?

    Della jabbed her key into the keyhole, twisted, and pushed the door open. After walking in, she slammed the door behind her and stomped upstairs. Della was so mad that all she wanted to do now was to tear up a roll of toilet paper into smithereens. Just as she thought that she had made some real friends after a long first month of seventh grade, she was used like a fool.

    Della’s phone buzzed. It was a text from her best friend Sage, asking her how the math test went. Not right now, Della groaned. She put her phone on the dresser and flopped onto the bed with all her school clothes on. Della slept for two hours.

    Della jerked awake when her phone rang. Sage again. Her thumb hovered over the Accept button. If Della picked up the phone, she would have to tell Sage everything—including bombing the math test Sage had spent two hours last night helping her to study for. Sage, for whom A is average and B is bad, would no doubt be disappointed. After the seventh ring, Della finally picked up.

    “Sage,” Della sputtered. “I’m so sorry I bombed the math test. It’s not my fault, I’m not a cheater. The teacher called me that in front of the whole class and it’s so unfair! I was betrayed!”

    “What happened?” Sage asked, confused.

    “This kid made me fail the test,” Della said, her voice rising. “I should have known better, his face was as sneaky as a fox’s. And all this time I thought he was my friend!”

    “How did he make you fail the test?”

    “Well, I was subtracting two negative numbers using a number line, like how you showed me. You said it was like canceling part of a debt, so I was moving my pencil to the right on the line when all of a sudden Fox Face tapped me and gave me a note with a heart on the top. Of course I helped him pass it to his girlfriend. However, before I could count to three the teacher had snatched the note and my pencil out of my hand. I never even saw what was written inside!”

    “So you thought you were helping Fox Face pass a love note, but it was actually a cheat sheet for a closed-book test. The teacher saw you and called you out for cheating. What did you tell him?”

    “Of course I told him I was just helping pass a piece of paper. No one would believe me, especially since the paper was open and all the answers were showing. I never cheated. You have to believe me, Sage!”

    “I do believe you, Della, but that’s because I know you. What were the names of Fox Face and the other kid you were passing the love note to?”

    “Andy and Julia.”

    “And what grade did you get on the test?”

    Della was hurt. Sage had just said that she believed Della, but here she was grilling her like the vice-principal this afternoon when Della was sent to his office for detention. Della did not think she should have to defend herself in front of her best friend, who knew how much she hated cheaters, how she studied two hours for this test every day this past week, and how much she wanted friends in this new school.

    “Well I got a 50. Are you satisfied now? Why are you asking so many questions?”

    A long pause followed, and Della felt guilty. Because Sage used to go to Della’s school, she knew how cliquish the kids were. To keep Della from feeling too lonely, she would call Della every day to talk and to help her study. Della, who hated being cooped up inside, would not have managed to study for her math test without Sage’s phone calls this past week. Della wished she could take back what she had just said. Yet, just as she was about to apologize, Sage said, “I know Andy and Julia, they like to scam new kids. Those two never study for tests. One time, three years ago now, Andy tried to get my brother Jeff to help him pass a note to Julia, and Jeff was almost going to do it. I stopped him just in time, because I saw Andy copying answers from the teacher’s book earlier. We stayed away from them afterward. I know you don’t cheat, but we have to find evidence to convince the teacher. Do you want me to help you tell the teacher what happened and also what I know about Andy and Julia?”

    Della was touched. Sage, who was too shy to speak up in class, was volunteering to defend Della in front of a new teacher. Yet this was a problem Della had to sort out herself. “Thanks, Sage, I really appreciate that,” she said. “I will try to talk to the teacher first. I will tell him the whole story, like how you told it back to me earlier.”

    “You can try writing it down first, sticking to the facts and don’t blame anyone. That’s how I like to do it when I have to say something tricky,” Sage said.

    “I will,” Della promised.

    After hanging up the phone, Della sat down at her computer and typed out an email to her teacher.

    Stick to the facts, Della, she told herself and crossed out the last sentence.

    Don’t blame anyone, Della reminded herself.

  • What Sage Saw

    What Sage Saw

    Sage arrived 10 minutes early, as usual, out of breath from running the last block. Della led her upstairs, dropped the duffel bag by the bed, then dragged her back down to the kitchen. “I have something for you,” she said, bouncing from one foot to the other.

    Della took a little brown bag from the counter, still warm, and handed it to Sage. Inside was a gooey, golden-brown chocolate chip cookie. Sage bit straight into its soft center and grinned.

    “It’s delicious, Della. I didn’t know you bake!”

    Della smiled. “I’m learning from a neighbor. She likes to invite kids over to her house to bake. She always wanted to have a house full of children, but she couldn’t have any kids. That’s why she’s happy when other kids come over to her house to hang out.”

    By this time Sage was almost done with the cookie. Taking her last bite, she said, “She sounds nice. What’s her name?”

    “Mrs. Okafor. Maybe we could go over to her house tonight.”

    Sage flinched and choked. “Mrs. Okafor, are you serious?”

    “Yeah, how else could I have made up a name like that? Why, do you know her?”

    “Of course I know her. My brother Jeff and I knew her husband too. When they first moved in, we brought a gift over to their house to welcome them, just like mom taught us to do. Mr. Okafor wouldn’t even open the door for us, screaming at us to go away instead. Another time, we picked a couple of apples from their tree that grew over the fence, and their dog chased us all the way to our driveway. I won’t go near that house.”

    “Mrs. Okafor told me that, when her late husband was going through chemo and radiation for his cancer, he had to shoo every kid away. It broke her heart every time. Now that both her husband and her dog are gone, Mrs. Okafor wants kids to come help her fill the empty house.”

    Sage frowned, opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again.

    “What do you want to say?” Della pressed.

    Sage stared out the window. She took so long to respond that Della thought she might have missed her question. She was about to repeat herself when Sage said, “Maybe it takes longer to really understand somebody.”

    Della answered, “Yes, it was the same way with us. It took us a while to get to know each other, but now we’re best friends. So, do you want to go or not?”

    “No, and maybe you shouldn’t go either. I really shouldn’t have eaten that cookie, Mrs. Okafor could have poisoned it or put bugs in the batter.”

    “I go to bake every weekend. The cookies are always delicious, and I never get sick,” Della countered. “I think you are just jealous I made a new friend.”

    Sage made a face but said nothing. Della smiled. “Don’t worry, Sage. Even if I have a thousand friends, you’re still my best friend.”

    Della patted herself on the back, feeling proud of what she just vowed to Sage. Her first act of keeping this promise was to call Mrs. Okafor to cancel – they were tired, she said.

    “No problem,” Mrs. Okafor said. “I’ll see you next time.”

    Della glanced over at Sage, expecting some response. Sage did not meet Della’s eyes. Instead she looked down at the notebook in which she was doodling. She is probably tired from running, Della thought. She has never been very athletic.

    Sage had started sketching a flower garden, similar to the one Della’s mom planted outside. It amazed Della how Sage could just start drawing and make something beautiful. Della wished that art could be as effortless for her as it was for Sage. Sighing, she picked up the half-finished scarf she was making for her grandma and started knitting.

    During the next hour, Della and Sage sat in silence. Each pretended to be focused, glancing at the clock on the dresser every minute. Della’s knitting was warping wider on the edges, while the hole in the middle grew larger with every round. Finally, Della ripped out the needle and unraveled the scarf.

    “I can’t do this,” she grunted.

    “You still got a few weeks before your grandma’s birthday,” Sage said.

    “Thanks, Sage,” Della replied. She started casting on stitches to begin again.

    After a moment, Sage said, “You probably won’t believe me, but I actually saw Mrs. Okafor earlier, just before I came to your house.”

    “Really?” Della asked, curious.

    “Yes. She was at the cemetery, putting flowers on her husband’s grave.”

    Sage paused, swallowed, and continued. “All of a sudden I heard her scream and run. When I turned, I saw a spider spinning a web on the wall beside Mr. Okafor’s grave. Spiders scare me, and I think Mrs. Okafor is afraid of them too. Then something started crawling up my arm, so I screamed and ran all the way to your house. As I was running, I could hear some second or third grade boys giggling behind the bushes.”

    Sage shivered, and Della could see goosebumps on her arms. Sage looked at the floor, her face flushed with embarrassment. After a moment, Della said, “That’s awful. Can we do something about it?”

    Sage showed Della her notebook. She had not sketched Della’s mother’s garden after all. Instead, Sage had drawn a detailed map of the cemetery, including the roses and gardenias that grew there. “We could ask the gardener to borrow the hose, and we would help him water the plants in exchange,” Sage said. “Nobody liked to clean up the dog mess or deal with kids underfoot anyway, so he would be glad to have our help. Then, when the kids with the spiders come again, we hydroblast them.”

    “Okay,” Della said. She studied Sage’s drawings and marked out a few spots where they could hide with the hose. Since Sage already knew every detail by heart, Della borrowed the notebook and spent the rest of the evening memorizing the map.

    The next morning, Sage woke Della up at 5:30 AM, in order to meet the gardener when he started work at 6:00. The gardener, glad for the help, handed off the hose and disappeared into the shed.

    They spent the next half hour clearing trash from the graves. Sage insisted they sort the cans for recycling. Although Della rolled her eyes, she did it anyway.

    Della was relieved when all the trash were finally sorted. They started watering the plants. It was past 7:00, and the boys could come any minute now, Della thought. Or they may not come at all today. How long could they wait? Della yawned.

    In the next second, Sage pulled Della behind some bushes and said, “There they are!”

    Della followed where Sage pointed and saw three small figures, one pudgy, one medium-sized, and a third skinny, walk up to Mr. Okafor’s grave. They were giggling. The medium-sized boy took out something wriggly in his bag and Sage took the hose. Pointing it at the boy with the spiders, she was about to turn it on when he saw her. The boy threw a spider in her direction, and it landed on Sage’s cheek and started crawling. Sage screamed, dropping the hose. The three boys laughed.

    Della brushed the spider from Sage’s face, grabbed the hose, and turned the water up. Using one hand to steady Sage’s arm, she put her best friend’s hand over the hose and her other hand on top. Together, they aimed the hose at each laughing face, hydroblasting the boys until all of them ran away, shrieking.

    Della turned off the hose. “Are you okay?” she asked.

    Sage nodded. “Thanks for saving the day,” she said.

    “No, we did it together,” Della insisted.

    After a moment, Mrs. Okafor approached the cemetery, carrying flowers. Della saw Sage move behind a bush and followed, making no sound. The older woman looked up and down the path, checking for both human and insect intruders. Seeing no one, Mrs. Okafor knelt down by her husband’s grave, laid out the flowers, said a short prayer, and left.

    Della was about to give Sage a high five when she saw her friend staring at a gravestone about five feet away, her eyes glistening with tears. Swallowing hard, Sage said, “We buried my brother here two years ago.”

    Sage crumpled onto the wet grass and started to cry. Della opened her mouth, about to repeat something her mom used to say to her dad when grandpa died, but closed it again. Instead, she walked over to her best friend. She put her arms around Sage’s shaking body and gave her a long hug.

  • The Bear Under the Floorboard

    The Bear Under the Floorboard

    Della took the last sweater from her suitcase and pushed it onto the floor, where it landed with a thunk. It was 9:00 PM on the seventh day since they moved. The hallways in her new school had never felt so long. At least Della was done unpacking.

    She was about to get up to get ready for bed when a hole on the floor, where her suitcase had loosened a floorboard, caught her attention. Inside was an envelope with the handwriting of her best friend Sage. The letters were all the same size, written with Sage’s favorite burgundy pen. The envelope was styled with the decorative border Sage drew on the covers of all her notebooks, and in the middle was the drawing of a teddy bear.

    Sage and Della had an unlikely friendship. Whereas Sage was quiet and artistic, Della was outgoing and athletic. They met at recess during the first day of fifth grade, when Sage had just moved to their town. Della had seen Sage sitting alone on a bench, knitting a bear. Della loved teddy bears and had always wanted to learn to knit. She went over to Sage and said, “Your bear looks so cute. Can you teach me how to knit something?”

    Sage agreed. After three months of hard work, Della made a scarf for her mom for Christmas. Della had always been so clumsy with fine art that her mom had never bothered to teach her how to knit.

    Della took Sage’s knitted bear from her dresser. Sage had left it in Della’s suitcase without telling her. The bear matched the picture exactly, right down to the rounded ears. It was just like Sage to memorize and reproduce something with every detail in place. Yet, why would Sage give Della the bear after what Della had said to her?

    On the last day of sixth grade, Della had made goodbye cards for all her friends and passed them out. Since Sage was her best friend, Della thought she would make her card extra-special by including a $20 gift card to the local fabric store. Yet Sage would not even open her card. Instead, she said, “It must be nice to just get up and move whenever you want, huh?”

    Della was so excited about joining the soccer team and the drama club in her new school that she missed the sarcasm in Sage’s voice. Instead, she rattled off all the things she was looking forward to doing next year, adding, “And you can come visit whenever you want, Sage. My address is 4210 Tulane Road.”

    For a split second Della thought Sage’s face had gone pale. Yet, before she could say anything, Sage had thrown her card into the trash.

    Della was hurt. “Never mind. You don’t have to come visit. You are not invited anyway!”

    Della opened the envelope and found a letter inside.

    Dear Jeff,

    I don’t know where you are now, but I want to leave this letter here in case you come back. Mom and Dad thought our house was too sad to live in after you were gone, so we are moving. I didn’t have time to finish knitting the bear that I wanted to leave with you, so a picture will have to do for now. You were my brother and best friend. I don’t even know who I will give the bear to when I finish making it.

    Love,
    Sage

    Della was still for a long moment as she absorbed everything she just learned. Sage had a brother. And her brother was gone.

    Della grabbed her cell phone and called Sage. Sage picked up on the first ring, and both girls started talking at once.

    “I’m sorry, Sage,” Della said. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. You are still my best friend. Please come visit me anytime.”

    On the other end, Sage was saying, “I’m sorry I threw away your card, Della. I got it back from the trash and it’s great. I can take a picture and show you that I really have it.”

    Della and Sage finished their apologies at the same time, and neither girl really heard what the other said. After a moment of silence, the girls laughed.

  • The Best Big Sister

    The Best Big Sister

    Short Fiction  ·  Middle Grade

    The Best Big Sister

    Carrie took another look at her poster. In the center was a picture of a little boy on a stretcher with burns on his face and arms, and next to him knelt a nurse cleaning his wounds. On the left was an empty space that Carrie wanted to fill now. She took a look around her father’s workshop and saw a bottle of turpentine on the bench. Dad had forbidden her three-year-old brother Alfred from the workshop because the turpentine could cause an explosion. Carrie saw the CAUTION label on the bottle and knew that she had to have it. She peeled it off from the bottle and put it on her poster. Perfect, she thought. Now everyone will know.

    Carrie’s teacher loved her poster and gave her an A. When school ended, she ran home to show it to her dad. As she approached her block, however, she was surprised by the sound of sirens. Walking closer, she was horrified to see little Alfred being carried out of the house on a stretcher, his face and arms covered with burns similar to those of the boy on her poster. When her father saw Carrie, he motioned for her to get into his car. They said nothing as they followed the ambulance to the hospital.

    Alfred was unconscious for the next three days, and the doctor said his heart stopped beating twice. Carrie and her father went to visit him every day, staying as long as the nurses would allow. On the fourth day, when they went into Alfred’s room, the doctor met them. Alfred had woken up earlier and cried for them. Though Alfred would recover, he would be blind for the rest of his life. Carrie saw her little brother’s closed eyes, eyes that would never see again, and cried.

    “It’s all my fault, dad,” she sobbed. “If I hadn’t used the turpentine label for my poster, Alfred wouldn’t be blind now.”

    Her father was silent for a moment, but then he walked over to give her a hug. “I wouldn’t have bought that turpentine from the general store if I knew what would happen. But we cannot go back, Carrie. We live in the present. Be the best big sister for Alfred. Encourage him. Help him be independent.”

    Carrie put her arms around her father and nodded on his shoulder. “I promise, dad,” she said.

    Carrie soon learned how to clean and dress Alfred’s wounds. A lady came to teach Alfred Braille every afternoon, and another man visited once a week to show him how to walk with a long white cane. Carrie asked to learn alongside Alfred, and the teacher agreed. To practice Braille, Carrie would put labels on Alfred’s clothes to identify their color, read books with her brother, and teach it to her friends at school. She encouraged Alfred to use his cane to walk by himself as much as possible—on the playground, at church, at his preschool. Alfred learned quickly, but Carrie always stayed a step ahead, ready for his next challenge.

    Three busy years passed, and Alfred was now in the first grade while Carrie started sixth. One day, Carrie found her brother unusually quiet when she picked him up from class. Yet she held her curiosity until they got home. “How was school today, Alfred?” Carrie finally asked, when they had put down their backpacks and were sitting on the couch.

    Alfred burst out crying. “It was horrible, Carrie,” he sobbed. “I was running around with my cane and bumped into Angela. I didn’t know she was drinking soda and it spilled all over her favorite dress. She said she won’t talk to me ever again!”

    “Did you tell her that you were sorry?”

    “No. She said she wouldn’t talk to me.”

    “Angela is your best friend. If you tell her you were sorry, maybe she will forgive you.”

    “How do I do that? Do I just go up to her and say sorry?” Alfred asked in a small voice.

    “Yes. I will help you find her tomorrow, and you can tell her you are sorry you spilled her soda and ruined her dress—and you will be more careful next time.”

    The next day, Carrie brought Alfred to Angela. He apologized to her, using the words they practiced. Angela forgave him. Carrie stood behind them, smiling.

    On the day before Christmas break, Carrie was with her friends on the field when she heard Alfred shouting, “I’m not scared!”

    “Then climb with us,” one boy taunted. “I bet you’re too scared to even put your foot on the first rail.”

    Lifting his foot, Alfred was about to hook it into the gap between two bars when Carrie cried, “Alfred, stop!”

    Alfred hesitated, and the two boys laughed. “I knew it,” one said. “Little brother is too scared of big sister!”

    “No,” Alfred spun around and shot back at Carrie. “If I weren’t blind, I would be on the other side already. It was all your fault, Carrie!”

    Carrie froze. Her hands hung in midair, her face white as chalk. He knew, she thought, and he was right. It was all her fault that Alfred was blind.

    The fence shook slightly as the other two boys started climbing. Alfred, feeling the movement, turned around and put his feet on the bottom rail. Then he climbed steadily, hand over hand. Above him, the fence ended in sharp, upward-curving spikes like a wolf’s teeth, ready to tear. Carrie jumped and grabbed Alfred by the waist, pulling him away from the fence. Then, they heard the triumphant whoop of one of the boys, who had made it to the top, turn into a scream as his legs swung over the rail and the teeth did what they were always going to do. Carrie’s friends ran to find a teacher.

    Alfred turned toward Carrie and reached for her hand, the same way he had reached for it when he was three, when he was in the hospital, and the world had gone dark. His voice broke when he said it. “I’m sorry, Carrie.” She pulled him close and they held each other.

    The bell rang. Carrie took Alfred’s hand and led him across the field to where Angela and the other girls were standing in line. They made a space for him.

    On Christmas morning, Carrie woke up early and went downstairs to help decorate the tree. She was surprised to find Alfred already there, putting ornaments on the branches. Recognizing his sister’s footsteps, Alfred stopped what he was doing, took a box from under the tree, and pressed it into Carrie’s hands. “Merry Christmas, Carrie. I have something for you. Open it!”

    “But it’s not time yet, Alfred,” Carrie protested.

    “Open it, please!” Alfred insisted.

    Carrie removed the wrapping and felt bumps. TO THE BEST BIG SISTER IN THE WORLD AND FUTURE NURSE, FROM ALFRED AND DAD. The message was written in Braille and print made tactile with white glue.

    Inside the box was a first-aid kit. It contained bandages of various types, a bottle of antiseptic solution, alcohol wipes, ointments and lotions, scissors with blunt tips, tweezers, cotton balls, a thermometer in its case—everything a nurse would need in an emergency. Each item was labeled like the box, in Braille and raised print.

    “Now you and I can both see all the letters,” Alfred said. “Do you like it, Carrie?”

    “I love it, Alfred,” she said, her voice quivering.

    ∗   ∗   ∗

    Filed under: Short Fiction  ·  Middle Grade  ·  Deadlines for Writers June 2026

  • Beyond the Gate

    Beyond the Gate

    Alfred pressed his hands against the cold metal bars of the garden gate. Inside, his father’s rake scraped the earth in slow, deliberate strokes.

    “Dad, can I help pull weeds? I promise I won’t step on anything.”

    The rake went silent. “Don’t touch anything in this garden,” his father said. “Last time you pulled up every daffodil and left the thorns standing. Go inside.”

    “Alfred and I can weed together,” his sister Carrie offered. “I’ll tell him which ones are flowers.”

    “The garden isn’t safe for your brother.” His father’s voice was not unkind, which made it worse. “He could get stabbed, trip on the rocks, get lost. Best run along, Alfred.”

    Alfred took out his white cane and hit the gate hard on his way out. Inside the house he slammed the door and slapped the hot tears from his face before they could fall.

    ✦

    “Let us rise and sing Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”

    The pastor’s voice brought Alfred back to the present. He rose with the others and sang with all his heart. Despite everything, he had loved his father. He was glad the old man’s suffering was over.

    After the service Alfred and Carrie stood shaking hands until the last mourner had gone. At the graveside Alfred thanked his father for loving them the only way he knew how, and promised to help keep the garden from going to ruin. A week later they visited the garden he had tended for thirty years.

    “Do you want me to guide you, or go in alone?” Carrie asked. “Everything is in neat rows. But some plants have thorns, and others are poisonous.”

    “I’ll go in myself,” Alfred said. Carrie placed the key in his hand.

    For the first time, Alfred walked into his father’s garden. He moved down each aisle, cane finding the stone path, stopping often — for the dense sweetness of roses, lavender’s drier fragrance, the waxy intoxicating smell of gardenia that made him crouch and feel the thick cool petals with both palms. He laughed when he found lamb’s ear, pressing its impossibly soft leaves against his cheek. A faint rustling drew him to ornamental grasses, their arching blades swaying like silk ribbons. Only the woody scent of rosemary told him the warmth had left the sun. He had been inside for hours.

    “There were so many plants to smell and touch and listen to,” he told Carrie over potato soup that evening. “I wish more people could experience such loveliness.”

    “So what do you want to do?”

    “Make this garden a place where everyone could hear and smell and touch nature’s beauty.” He paused. “But I’ve never done any gardening, Carrie.”

    “I used to help Dad,” she said simply. “I’m there if you need me.”

    The next morning she placed a spade in his hands and taught him to feel the resistance of soil with his body rather than his eyes, then moved him through the rake and the hoe. “If you forget everything else,” she said, “remember: the spade opens the ground, the rake refines it, the hoe maintains it.” That evening she pressed into his hands something else — braille notes on every plant in the garden, written over three days without telling him.

    Alfred spent the following week designing. The fence would be covered in honeysuckle. Rosemary hedges would line both sides of the stone path. Lavender edging would signal visitors to slow down near the beds. At the caution zones he chose lamb’s ear as the boundary — its unmistakable velvet a warning that required no words.

    One evening while weeding he cut a stem that released thick milky sap. The burning began before he could put down his tools. He washed his hands until Carrie came home, took over, wrapped them in cold cloth, and applied calamine lotion with the quiet efficiency of someone who had always tended his wounds. She said nothing about the garden. When he was healed she handed him gardening gloves without a word.

    Three months later he discovered monkshood at the local nursery — tall spikes of deep purple hooded flowers, complex and architectural under his gloved fingers. He worked with it all afternoon, not knowing the gloves were torn at the fingertips from weeks of use. The tingling began that evening, spread from his fingers up his arms to his chest. By morning he could not rise. Carrie sat beside him through two anxious weeks until the doctor’s grave face confirmed what she already feared.

    On the first morning he could sit up, Alfred found Carrie’s braille notes on the bedside table. Monkshood on top. His sister believed in him. But if his father — a master gardener — had never conceived of such a place, who was he, an amateur poisoned twice, to bring it to life? He put the tools away in the shed.

    ✦

    The camp for visually impaired children sat in open country, and Alfred loved it from the first morning. He taught the children to identify birds by song, to follow a path with their canes, to find pineapple weed along the path edges and press it between their fingers in delight. He played ukulele at campfires, told stories, led search parties whenever a camper wandered. He slept soundly and rose eager. After three summers he was promoted to assistant director, and the first change he made was to organize a visit to a private estate garden. The director assured him nothing was poisonous. Alfred was so moved by the rare invitation that when the director suggested he preview the grounds first, he declined. He wanted to be surprised alongside the children.

    The garden was beautiful. Fragrance drifted between the beds and the children moved through it with open hands and open faces. “Children,” Alfred said, “feel free to explore. I want to hear every new scent you discover.”

    Martin had a particular allergy. His mother always checked new environments first, a habit that embarrassed him. Alfred had said to explore, and he was going to enjoy himself for once. He touched and sniffed everything until he felt the bumps rising on his arms and knew. “Mr. Alfred,” he called, his voice shaking.

    Alfred felt the boy’s arms and burning forehead and forced himself calm. The camp nurse called an ambulance. As it pulled away he gathered the children and led them back.

    He called Martin’s mother that night. No one answered. He called the next day, and every day after. The unanswered phone was worse than confrontation — a man on death row who never learned his sentence.

    The camp director thanked him for three years of dedication and told him they could not retain him. Alfred said thank you in a voice he did not recognize and walked out before the tears reached his face.

    ✦

    Carrie drove him home. Alfred sat with her braille notes in his hands and thought about gates — his father’s, the campground’s, the ones he kept shutting on himself. He had spent his life pressing his hands against locked bars, and when he finally threw every gate open he had nearly killed a boy.

    He went to see how the garden was doing. Weeds had taken the beds. Some of his early plantings had died, leaving bare patches in the soil. He crouched beside the dead section and stayed there a long time, hands reading the ground. His first plantings were dead. His first directorship was dead. But the garden was not dead. He was not dead. He was only tired — tired of locked gates.

    He heard Carrie’s footsteps. She did not speak. She opened the shed, took out a hoe, and began clearing dead growth beside him — pulling weeds, making space, working with the steady patience she had always brought to every ruined thing in his life. After a long moment Alfred stood, went to the shed, and came back with a spade. He crouched next to her and began.

    They worked until Carrie’s stomach rumbled.

    “Spaghetti and meatballs,” Alfred said.

    “Sounds perfect,” she said, and her stomach rumbled again.

    ✦

    Over the following months Carrie brought home seed packets and potted plants each evening, and Alfred spent his days planting, watering, and weeding. By spring the beds were fragrant with blossoms. He found work at a call center and discovered a gift for sales. On coworkers’ birthdays he brought fruit or potted plants from the garden, always received with more warmth than he expected.

    One evening over shepherd’s pie Carrie said, “Alfred, I think your garden is ready for the world.”

    He was quiet. He had thought of the garden only as his — a gate finally open after a lifetime outside. But perhaps a gate open to one person could be opened wider.

    “Do you think anyone would come?”

    “I think we have made this garden welcoming to people of every ability,” Carrie said. “All we need are signs — which plants to touch freely, which to approach with care, which are poisonous, which cause allergies. It’s almost your birthday. What better way to mark a year of hard work?”

    For three weeks they made signs after work — braille and print, mounted at hand height, each carrying the plant’s name, a raised tracing of its texture in dried glue, a scent description, a safe-to-touch indication, allergy warnings, and a DO NOT INGEST notice where needed. The entrance bore a tactile map of the garden paths. The welcome statement took Alfred two days to write:

    We welcome you to explore at your own pace and in your own way. Please read each sign before you touch or smell. Use caution if you have special allergies, and never eat what is not meant to be eaten.

    On Alfred’s birthday they opened the gate.

    Carrie sold seeds at the entrance while Alfred led children through tours he had designed — pausing at each plant to show them how to approach it on its own terms. Roses, he told them, have thorns because they prefer to be smelled and admired rather than handled. Apple blossoms are welcoming because the tree wants you to carry the seeds away so more apple trees can grow. Every plant has a personality, he said, and the art is learning to listen for it.

    A boy arrived with his mother and went straight to Carrie’s table, picking up seed packets and asking rapid questions — dragonfruit, lavender, can you grow this in a pot? Carrie answered everything with a smile. When the boy and his mother turned to join the tour, Carrie looked up and recognition arrived like a quiet blow — the boy’s profile, his particular way of holding his head. Martin.

    His mother saw Carrie’s face and smiled.

    Carrie smiled back, watching Martin reach out and touch the first sign on the path — his fingers moving carefully over the braille, reading, learning the name of what he was about to meet — and felt, more than anything else, proud of her brother for building a garden where a boy like Martin could finally touch everything safely, freely, and without fear.

  • The Garden That Waited

    The Garden That Waited

    The Garden That Waited

    A short story, with a tone poem

    Listen to the tone poem

    Play this while you read, or after.

    Player not showing? Listen on Clyp.

    The first morning at Grandma’s house, she gave me an old, rusty key.

    “Go outside and explore,” she said.

    I did not want to walk around with an old key, but I wanted to cross Grandma even less. So I put the key in my wallet and went outside.

    Grandma’s yard had a concrete path with plants lining either side. I took small steps forward, not wanting to stray into the flowerbeds. I was taking the key out to examine it more closely when I stepped on a loose rock. Falling forward, I bumped my head against an old metal gate and sent the wallet flying beneath it. It landed on soil with a thud. I shook the gate and found it locked. I had stumbled upon the garden my great uncle, who was also blind, had crafted.

    I felt along the wall for another way in. I found a tree with thick branches stretching beyond the gate into the garden. But when I stepped onto the lowest branch, it snapped and I tumbled to the ground. I dusted myself off and picked up the broken branch, sweeping it in front of me like the long cane I had forgotten to bring. Trailing the gate, I smelled pungent scents and felt leaves tickling my cheek. My hand found a rope of braided herbs. I followed it — but it led me straight back to the cold, locked gate.

    The wind picked up, carrying the rustling of leaves and the jingling of wind chimes. One chime sounded more dull than the others. I reached up and found something attached to it with a string — an old, rusty key, not unlike the one inside my wallet. I untied it, trailed back to the gate, and inserted it into the lock. It would not turn.

    I sat on the ground and put my head in my hands. Grandma had told me to explore, but I had nowhere to go.

    Then I remembered — the broken branch. I thrust it beneath the gate and heard a small tinkle. Slowly, patiently, I nudged my wallet closer until it landed on the concrete beside me with a ding. I took out Grandma’s key and put it in the lock. This time it turned. The gate swung open.

    I walked through and closed it behind me.

    Standing with my back to the gate, I took a deep breath. The air was fragrant with mint, lavender, rosemary, basil, and other herbs I could not name. Instead of wind chimes, I heard birds singing above me. The braided rope of herbs was right overhead, and by following it I discovered I could travel the whole garden — smelling the flowers, touching the trees, feeling enveloped by warm air and sweet scents like a welcomed guest. No thorns caught my fingers. No bitter smells warned me away. Everything here invited touch.

    I held up Grandma’s key in one hand and grasped the braided herbs with the other. My great uncle had crafted this garden for someone like me. And my grandmother, all along, had known exactly where it was.

  • The Silent Language

    The Silent Language



    The Silent Language

    A story of secrets, Morse code, and the truth hidden in touch.

    Zoey yawned for probably the tenth time in the past three minutes. It was snowing outside. Though she was sitting right by the heater, Zoey could still feel the cold seep in from the kitchen window that never quite closed properly. She would have to tell Mrs. Sands, the landlady, about it. Too bad she kept forgetting when it was warm, and when it started to snow, Mrs. Sands would be on vacation.

    Chip, Zoey’s guide dog, stirred in sleep at her feet. She rubbed his ears and he woke up, cocking his head to look up at her. “It’s okay, boy,” she said softly. Then she began scrolling through her phone calls, her messages, and her emails. There were no missed calls, unread messages, or unread mail. Her brother had not called, and it was now 11:55 PM on her birthday. He doesn’t have much time left, she told herself.

    She looked at the fool-proof chocolate cake she baked. This was the first thing she ever made using the oven at 13, and it was on her brother’s birthday. Her brother had told her that it was his favorite food in the world, and ever since then she has baked this chocolate cake every year on both their birthdays—even after he went away to serve with the Navy.

    Chip nudged her hand, and Zoey checked the time on her phone again. 11:58. “I just want to know that he is all right,” she said aloud to no one in particular, but Chip licked the back of her hand anyway.

    Well, I guess I will go to bed; it’s much warmer when I close the door and snuggle under my blankets anyway, Zoey thought. Just as she was about to call Chip to go into the bedroom with her, someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t the tap-tap-tap-tap of a polite knock or the incessant pounding of her mom, but it was the rhythm of SOS in Morse Code.

    “Who’s there?” Zoey called as loud as she could, but her thin voice was swallowed up by the sound of falling snow in the night. The person outside tapped the SOS signal again. Clearly it was someone who knew that she knew Morse Code. And that person was in trouble.

    Zoey decided to take a chance. She tapped her thigh to get Chip to come and stand next to her, and together they headed for the door. She opened it just as the person on the other side started tapping the signal again, this time faster and harder, as if time was running out.

    Zoey swung open the door. Immediately a gust of cold air rushed in, pushing her back a step. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home,” the woman on the other side said. The woman’s voice was hoarse and choked, but Zoey could not mistake it. It was her sister-in-law, Marilyn.

    “I’m so sorry to bother you so late, but may I come in?” Marilyn said, her voice hesitant. “Of course. What’s wrong, Marilyn?”

    “Oh, I was coming over to see you when this drunk driver hit me, and now I am all scratched up. Do you have a first-aid kit?”

    “Let me go get it!” Zoey pulled the door shut, rushed over to the kitchen, and got out the smooth rectangular box. “Do you want me to help you?” she asked, even though she had never helped bandage someone up before.

    “No, it’s okay, I can take care of myself,” Marilyn said as she took the kit and rummaged through it for supplies. Zoey turned to make tea, listening carefully as Marilyn sat down. For some reason, Zoey felt the need to stay as quiet as she could. Don’t be paranoid, she told herself. This is Marilyn, you have known each other for the past three years!

    Zoey poured two cups of tea and brought them over. “What happened? Why is my brother not with you?” Zoey asked.

    “I really can’t talk about your brother,” Marilyn said, her voice breaking. She began to describe a side of Zoey’s brother that Zoey didn’t recognize—a story of anger and abuse. Marilyn showed Zoey her arms and neck, where Zoey felt the heat of bruises and the texture of scars.

    Marilyn then handed Zoey a few items she had “grabbed by mistake”: her brother’s phone and pieces of torn Braille paper. As Zoey examined the phone and the letters, her confusion grew. The scent of her brother’s cologne was there, but so was the sharp, clinical smell of antiseptic and hospital corridors. The Braille paper felt wrong—it was smooth where it should have been marked by a slate and stylus.

    The next morning, the inconsistencies piled up. Marilyn’s story about a “home office” dispute didn’t fit the brother Zoey knew. Her brother expressed love through his hands—he had spent years transcribing books into Braille for her. He wasn’t a man of violent hands, but a man of silent, dedicated service.

    Zoey retreated to her room and called “A.L.,” the emergency contact her brother had given her from the Navy. Instead of speaking, she tapped out a Morse code sequence—the lifeboat number from her brother’s first ship. The man on the other end gasped. “Frederick, is that you?”

    “I am Frederick’s sister, Zoey,” she replied. The truth began to pour out. A.L. promised to find him, revealing a secret Zoey hadn’t known: her brother had lost his own eyesight saving a comrade’s son.

    Zoey walked back to the living room, her heart heavy but her mind clear. She looked at Marilyn, whose silence now spoke louder than her words. “My brother learned Braille so that he could talk to me,” Zoey said firmly. “He has always found a way to communicate his love, and he always will.”

    Taking Chip’s leash, Zoey stepped out into the cold morning. She was shivering, but she was no longer lost. She had stepped into the truth, and she knew her brother would be found.

  • Unwrapped

    Unwrapped

    When Gerald Andersen learned that his favorite stationery store, the one he used to visit every Monday with his mother after school, was closing, he was reading the January 1980 issue of the National Geographic. The dog-eared pages and the margin notes showed that issue was beloved by both mother and son, for both of them had left their fingerprints and reflections within it.

    Despite how much he enjoyed going down memory lane browsing through the magazine and seeing his mother’s notes, he knew he had to go to that store one more time in her memory. Walking sideways, Gerald squeezed himself between cabinets and bookshelves, stepped over boxes of old pictures, and finally reached the shelves where the magazine now belonged. With the meticulousness of a librarian, Gerald scanned the taped notes he put on the shelves until he found the section labeled National Geographic, 1980–1996. He nudged the February issue away from the wall and squeezed the magazine he was holding next to it. Turning around, he was about to walk out the door when he saw his wife, Sandra, watching him there.

    He walked over to her, gave her a quick hug, and said, “I’m going out to visit the stationery store. It’ll be shuttered after today.”

    “Drive safe, Gerald, and promise me that you’ll just get one thing.”

    “I’ll try my best.”

    After a twenty-minute drive, Gerald reached the stationery store and saw Jackie, the current owner, waving at him. “We got some really good deals for you, Gerald,” Jackie said when Gerald walked in.

    “Won’t miss them for the world,” Gerald said, smiling.

    Gerald started shopping. The first thing that caught his eye was a stack of birthday cards. He remembered how he used to buy them with his mother to send to his friends, relatives, and eventually Sandra when they started dating. He decided to take the whole stack, thinking that he would eventually use them all. Gerald went to the pencils and pens section, where he bought his mother’s favorite ballpoint pens, multi-colored pens, a tin of pencils, and a couple of pencil sharpeners to go with them. After arming himself with all the pens and pencils he would need to write cards for the whole neighborhood the next five years, Gerald caught sight of a box of notebooks. “You can buy all of them for just $25,” Jackie called to him. Without hesitation, Gerald picked up the whole box. The last thing his mother used to shop with him was wrapping paper, for she loved giving away presents to her neighbors, church friends, and charities. He bought as many as he could hold. Just as the tin of pencils were teetering on top of the stack of notebooks, he saw a roll of vintage wrapping paper his mother used to buy to wrap presents for birthdays and Christmases. Gerald knew he must have it.

    “Do you need a basket, Gerald?” Jackie asked, already bringing one over.

    “You’re the best, Jackie,” Gerald replied, allowing the items to tumble from his arms into the basket Jackie held.

    “I’ll miss you, Gerald,” Jackie said, chuckling. “You and your mother were always our favorite customers.”

    After paying for everything, Gerald said his goodbyes to Jackie and drove directly to his storage unit. When he opened the door, cans of paint, which were stacked high on shelves, fell and started rolling out the door. Gerald scrambled to catch them, rearranged the shelves, and pushed them back, only to knock down another shelf containing his college textbooks. Sandra had packed this storage unit for him, and she had done a good job optimizing the space. After spending another ten minutes stacking, forcing, and rearranging, Gerald had to admit that the storage unit was one hundred percent full. He stepped out and closed the door. As he was putting all his purchases back into the trunk, Gerald felt nervous. He had no other option but to take the purchases home to Sandra, but he was afraid of how she would react. Would she be angry? Disappointed? Make him return everything? Yet these purchases were different — they were about honoring the memory of his late mother. Sandra had to understand. She always did.

    When he arrived home, Sandra opened the door. Seeing the armfuls of stationery, her face turned white. “Gerald, I thought you were only going to buy one thing. What’s all this for?”

    “I’m sorry, honey,” Gerald said, his voice squeaky with anxiety. “My mother loved that store, and these things were her favorites to buy.”

    “We already have your mother’s couch, her books, her cookware, and her journals and photos. You can’t bring any more mementos into this house.”

    “This,” Gerald said, hugging the vintage wrapping paper, “is what she used to wrap my gifts, your gifts, and all our friends’ and family’s Christmas and birthday gifts. We have to save it. We have to write on the paper our messages with the exact same stationery kit she used, so that we can keep her memory alive.” Gerald was about to take out the ballpoint pens to show Sandra the different colors his mother used to write different sections of a letter when she cut him off.

    “Your mother is not in any of these things, Gerald. She’s gone!”

    The cold truth hit Gerald like a knife through his heart. He picked up everything, pushed past Sandra, and ran into the spare room only to find that it was filled to the doorway with the furniture and keepsakes he had brought over from his mother’s house. Frustrated, Gerald ran into his and Sandra’s bedroom and slammed the door. He began to weep as he unrolled the vintage wrapping paper. Gerald started cutting pieces off to wrap imaginary gifts with them, and the act made him feel close to his mother again. However, after he had cried and pretended to wrap gifts for ten minutes, still surrounded by stationery that he knew he could not keep, he felt utterly alone.

    At that moment, Sandra opened the door gently and stepped in. Ashamed of his pretend-play, Gerald turned to his wife and said, “I just don’t want to forget her!”

    “I understand, Gerald. Do you know what this is?”

    Gerald gasped as Sandra took from her cardigan pocket a birthday card he had written and illustrated for her fifteen years ago. “I didn’t know you still had it!”

    “I understand saving things that matter too, Gerald,” she said. “Your mother was a generous person, a voracious reader, and a great writer, so I’m glad we have her books and journals. But what do you think she would want you to do with all these?” She gestured to the stationery strewn on the floor.

    Gerald looked at the pencils and pens he would have used to do his homework with his mother. They were the same brand, but they looked too new. He then examined the notebooks — unused, blank, free from the past and full of possibilities for the future. Finally, he touched the rolls and rolls of wrapping paper he had bought and knew that they were not meant to sit rolled up in his house. His mother used to say that the Lord had blessed him so that he could bless others. Well, what if the things he bought could give less fortunate children a future, just as their predecessors had done for him?

    “I think we can go on a date tonight, Sandra.”

    “To where?”

    “Well, I have lots of gifts to give out, and I want you to join me.”

    “Of course, Gerald,” Sandra said, her voice shaking as she dabbed tears from her eyes.

  • The Glow of Comfort

    The Glow of Comfort

    Taryn checked the clock, 4:20 PM. her boss said that she could leave 30 minutes early for her birthday, so she spent the last 10 minutes checking her email to make sure that she has 0 unanswered messages, checked to see that her todo list was clear, and tidied up her desk. As she opened the first drawer, a curious yellow glow caught her eye. Peering into the back of her drawer, she saw that the light was emitted by the crystal ball her father gave her eighteen years ago. The compass on the crystal ball was pointing south, while the orb vibrated softly. “If you ever see the crystal ball glowing,” her father had said, “you must drop everything and follow the compass. I promise, it will take you to safety.”

    Since Taryn was going south of the office to dinner with her friends anyway, she thought she would take the crystal ball with her. Just to be safe, she thought, although I cannot imagine being in any danger going to my favorite restaurant with my friends. It sure seems safer than living with parents who could leave you at any time!

    When her mother disappeared eighteen years ago, Taryn’s father had given her the crystal ball with the instructions, promising to come home immediately upon finding her mother. He then dropped Taryn off to live with Grandma, a former military sergeant who was clean, hard-working, and strict. Since both Taryn’s parents were writers who had friends over all hours of the night, it took her a whole year to adapt to Grandma’s punctual, organized, no-nonsense way of life. Every day that year, she would check the crystal ball for a glow, waiting for the call to adventure. Yet never once did any light emit from the sphere, and the compass on it stayed still.

    Eventually, she gave up waiting and adapted to her new way of life. Under Grandma’s discipline, Taryn turned from being a lackluster student into someone who got straight A’s in school, played in the orchestra, and was president of one club or another in high school. When Taryn majored in English in college, Grandma made sure that she had an internship every summer, and she received a full-time job offer a year before she graduated. With Grandma’s help, Taryn left the chaotic life of her childhood behind to work a stable job as an executive assistant, receiving employee of the month once a year for the past six years. She was not about to let the crystal ball disrupt her curated life.

    When Taryn had driven about a mile away from her office, her phone rang. Yet she almost missed it, because a woman in a white car was screaming at her toddler, who was running around in the busy street. As cars swerved left and right to avoid hitting the little girl, she was making her way toward Taryn’s car, apparently attracted by the giant teddy bear sitting next to Taryn on the front seat. Taryn was about to take out her phone to call the police when she saw that the CTO of one of their largest customers was calling her. She picked up.

    “Hello!”

    “Hello Taryn? I’m calling because we want to make you an offer. Hello, can you hear me?”

    Taryn could not respond, for at that moment a horn blared as a truck nearly slammed into Taryn’s car trying to avoid hitting the child. By now the little girl had reached Taryn’s car, and Taryn knew that she had to get involved. Unlocking her car doors, Taryn clambered to the other side and opened the door to let the child in. Upon entering Taryn’s car, the little girl immediately wrapped her arms around the teddy bear and squealed with delight. Taryn barely managed to close the door and climb back to the driver’s side before the light changed and she had to start driving. After having driven for a few blocks, she finally found a safe spot to pull over and wait for the child’s mother. Soon the mother pulled up, thanked Taryn, and disentangled the child from the teddy bear and got into their car. Watching the mother and child drive away, Taryn felt a sense of longing for her own mother, yearning to hug her once again. Yet she quickly pushed the feeling away.

    Only then did Taryn remember the call. As she picked up her phone, she saw an email from HR, sent at 5:00 PM. “Due to recent performance concerns, we have decided to postpone your promotion review.” She had no idea that she was being put up for promotion. Yet, even more upsetting for Taryn was when she saw the three missed calls from the CTO and a voicemail. For 1247 days, as marked on her executive assistant dashboard, Taryn has had no missed calls. Now, she has dropped from being first in the leaderboard for number of days without missed calls to becoming last, settling right behind the new executive assistant Josh who had his first no-missed-call day today. Taryn began to cry.

    When Taryn was parking, she felt the crystal ball vibrating violently. “Stop it,” she said to it, annoyed. “Now’s not the time to tell me to leave the restaurant!”

    Her friends had all arrived when Taryn walked into the restaurant, flustered. She checked her phone and realized that she was fifteen minutes late!

    “Taryn, are you okay?” her sharp-eyed best friend Mina asked, concerned.

    “I’m fine,” Taryn said weakly, knowing full well that no one believed her. Because Taryn would be ten minutes early to wherever she went, her friends surprised her by all coming fifteen minutes early, to order Taryn’s favorite dishes and wait for her. Therefore, when Taryn came, the food had all arrived on the table, getting cold.

    After dinner, her friends presented Taryn with a photo album. It contained 28 photos, one from each year of her life. When Taryn came to the last page, she was surprised to find not a photo but a sealed envelope.

    “Who is this from?” She asked.

    “Your grandma,” Mina said. “Did you think it was a secret lover?”

    Taryn blushed. Of all her friends, she was the only one who has never dated before, and she had no intention of opening herself up to the ambiguity of a relationship. As she tore the envelope open, she gasped. The handwriting was her mother’s, she could recognize the flowing script anywhere.

    Dearest Taryn,
    We’re in trouble. The mission went wrong. Your father’s crystal ball will keep you safe if you stay home. But if you want to save us, you’ll have to ignore it and come anyway.
    We won’t blame you either way.
    Love,
    Mom

    Taryn stared at the address, they were somewhere in Africa! She thought about how quickly her life had unraveled today, from being the executive assistant most likely to get employee of the month to becoming last in line for a promotion. Yet she has saved a child, and the little girl’s delightful squeal and the mother’s gratitude have to mean more than losing her reputation at work. And oh, how she would give anything to be hugged by her parents again!

    “Do you want to take the food home? Save yourself some cooking?” Mina asked, bringing Taryn back to the present.

    “No, why don’t you all take the food. I’m getting on a plane tonight,” Taryn replied.