family
Family unites us; but it's also a challenge. All about fighting to stay together, and loving every moment of it.
Cipher
The metronomic click of my turning signal didn’t seem to register in my dulled senses. It was only when I looked at the time and realized that I had been sitting in the car for 10 minutes did the sound re-enter into my consciousness. I don’t want to be here. If it weren’t for my mother telling me that my grandfather would have wanted me to be here I wouldn’t have. I would have felt closer to his memory at his small fishing hut near the river, where we would spend the afternoon when I was just a child. He used to call me “Chipmunk” on account of my red hair, prominent front teeth, and round face that I had as a child. He would tell me stories and answer all of my childish questions with more consideration than they deserved. He would often confide in me things that I didn’t realize the importance of until I grew older.
By Fellow Traveller 5 years ago in Humans
A Single Thought
“Just forget you!” she shouted as she stomped out the front door, slamming it behind her and bolting down the steps to the street. As she took her normal long strides, a bit more forcefully than usual, she realized that it was not only dark but also starting to rain.
By Michelle Brickner Bugayong5 years ago in Humans
Studying pyralid moths
That Summer, the time they smashed the bus shelter, and glass crunched under us like fresh hail, our shoes kicking the cruel glitter from school to the Co-op’s aerosol slang, I sat down to think about the meaning of it all. Really think. In that way only seven year olds can.
By Nicola Godlieb5 years ago in Humans
Grandmother’s Treasures
A Soldier's Riddle My grandmother passed away on my 20th birthday. She was a sweet lady who loved and cared for me after my mom, a single parent, had been killed in a car wreck ten years earlier. I was too grieved to cry or show any emotion at the funeral. We had no other family in the area, but people from our neighborhood church came by with food, condolences, and offers of help for the next several weeks. It had been over six months and I dreaded going through my grandmother’s things. I may have never tackled that insurmountable job, except that her house and property were being sold at auction the following month. I had tried everything to save it, but without her income added to mine to pay the mortgage every month, there wasn’t enough money to pay both the bills and the mortgage. It made me sad to think her home that had been in the family for generations would soon belong to someone else—someone with no connection to my grandmother, whatsoever.
By Tari Temple5 years ago in Humans
The Little Black Book of Happy Quotes
It was the first time she left the house since standing over her Grandmother’s casket. The sleepless nights and dreary days added up, but the amount of time seemed to allude Melanie. As she stepped into the sun, she realized she hadn’t left the house since the funeral. She took a long but jagged breath, trying to let the crisp morning air fill her lungs. She woke up thinking “I’ll just go get a cup of coffee.” But she knew leaving the house would amount to more than just a boost of caffeine; Grammie wouldn’t have wanted to see her like this.
By Britney Gladhill5 years ago in Humans
Brother's Ticket Keeper
The scratch-off ticket was an odd present. Ridley’s brother, Joseph, had stopped exchanging gifts with him when they were teenagers. Ridley felt a little bad that he hadn’t gotten his brother anything, but then again, Ridley was pretty sure the scratch-off was a gag gift.
By Phylicia Bridges5 years ago in Humans
The Moonlighter
What's the "proper" reaction, when you've moved into your late grandfather's house, and you find a strange bag? What's in the bag you ask? $20,000 and a little black notebook. Who do you call? What do you tell them? These were all the questions I had racing through my mind.
By AJ Solimine5 years ago in Humans
The Big Win
Some 14 months ago I undertook the enterprise of radically reordering my list of personal contacts. This event was triggered in no small part by the receipt of a small notebook, handsomely wrapped in black leatherette and emblazoned in fine silver with the words “Ohio Plumbing Expo 2010”.
By Oliver Arscott5 years ago in Humans
The Other Side of the Dunes
Picking through the rubble and debris of a leveled bungalow is tricky work. The sight of rusty screws, broken cinder blocks, and sharp, splintered wood shards make me wonder when I had my last tetanus shot. As I step over the unsteady mounds of rotting lumber and scrap, jumbo creepy-crawlies (that do not look like they are of this planet) skitter from their hiding places.
By Katie Kazimir5 years ago in Humans
The Book
“Just take it! Please!” The rain bounced off the bus stop, splashed aggressively off the pavement, and pelted relentlessly from the sky. Isolated in this watery shroud, Hannah tried to decipher the sign on the Chinese doctor's opposite. Psoriasis, infertility, obesity and… what was that word? Could it be grief? Could the Chinese doctor, a sweet man who walked his poodle in the field behind the flats, actually cure what was ailing her? IBS, arthritis, stress..? She was still trying to work out the missing word when her hands recoiled instinctively from an object being thrust into them.
By Morwenna Rowe5 years ago in Humans
To inherit emotion
It had been an uneventful Christmas. Years ago, when I was still living with my parents, they told me I was leeching off them and told me to move out. We didn’t really speak after that. The fact that I was an only child in a small family meant that nobody usually contacted me on Christmas.
By James Spasko5 years ago in Humans
