A year or so before my mom’s dementia took her mind away, she shocked me by stopping in front of my digital kitchen clock and proclaiming, “4:44 – that’s a great sign! Happiness, or good luck, or something like that.” Continue reading
The Creature Inside and Out
“Stevie, I don’t have a creature inside me,” I insist. “In fact, there’s not much left to me at all,” I stare down at my decrepit body, hunched over from arthritis and age.
“That’s the point, Auntie!” Stevie exclaims. “The creature inside you is young. Vibrant. Viral.”
Readers: I’m Lucia, and my story began at the last post (https://roughwighting.net/2023/04/07/the-creature-within/) explaining that my brilliant nephew Stevie is convincing me to take a pill he invented that will help me become“the creature within.” At my old age, crooked with regrets, I decide to take the plunge, so to speak. Many of you guessed I will turn into a dragon, or a bird, a snake or a butterfly. Some of you even guessed I’d become a … well, wait, I’m holding the pill in my hand …
The Creature Within
I always liked Stevie as a kid. He was kooky, and so was I. But I was in my mid-40s when he was born.
By the time Stevie was a teen, his intellect was genius level, and his nerdiness disturbed his two straighter-than-an arrow parents, so they put him in an advanced program at MIT and crossed fingers he’d be accepted by the other odd souls that hovered in the halls of techno academia. Continue reading
Brotherly Love
I call him, sucking in my breath and biting my tongue so I won’t cry.
He hates emotion.
But he loves me. I know that. As long as I don’t cry. Continue reading
The Parrot’s Promised Land
Two weeks ago, my neighbor Missy dropped off her parrot JOJO at my house and raced off to visit her ailing father in Florida.
At the time, JoJo, an ancient Psittacine, prophesized that Missy’s dad would die.
JoJo was right. (Parrot Plot Points)
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