#sagetyrtle

Click: true moments collected over the years. Stories too short for the stage.

I only see her at dusk. A fevered glimpse from the corner of my eye.

I only see her at dusk, over and over again. A small woman. Pushing a shopping cart piled high with stuffed animals and books and glass jars and a lamp on the top. Her face is burned. Every single inch of her face is burned and when she blinks I can see her burned eyelids. But she meets my eyes and she's smiling this sweet smile through burned lips. She passes me, shopping cart rattling. Two teenage girls beside her. One holding her hand.  Suddenly, I'm 12 again. Grade 7. It's parent teacher night and I'm watching this brother and sister, Angela and Ed. And they're both fat so no one cares that they're knife-edge smart and funny. I'm watching them help their mother inside. She's panting. Her legs are like tree-trunks and she has a cane but she stumbles anyway and falls to one knee and they move to help her. The cool kids are sniggering loudly but Angela and Ed? Never look up. They just gently help their mother to her feet and the three of them go inside.  And I think - I am not that brave. I am never that brave.  And the teenage girls walk with their mother. Burned and rattling. Everything she owns piled in that shopping cart. And the girls, they don't see the stares. Their mother's smile is far too bright.

Clicks are posted every Monday and Wednesday.