{"id":2111,"date":"2016-01-15T16:42:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T16:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/?p=2111"},"modified":"2016-09-12T16:43:27","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T16:43:27","slug":"short-story-i-am-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/short-story-i-am-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Story: I Am Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/strong>y mother died birthing me and she never revealed who my sperm-donor father was. If he didn\u2019t want to know me then I sure as heck don\u2019t want to know him. My heart mother was my grandmother and I called her Ma Maw. She rarely understood any of my emotional outbursts but she loved me through them. She even loved me through the chaos when I nearly duplicated my mother\u2019s path to having me. I left that good fer nothin\u2019 scum far behind me in the dust of my life, with my only scar being my pride.<\/p>\n

My Ma Maw loved me through it all and mentored me into becoming this semi-self respectable woman that I now am. Her frizzy white hair jutted out at crazy angles and it matched her wild care-free personality. Her arthritic knuckles bulged from years of serving Pa Paw and me. My Pa Paw left us when I was entering puberty. Death never comes at a convenient time but the timing for his heart attack was pretty lousy. My various boyfriends at the time claim I was actin\u2019 way too \u201cclingy\u201d.<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder if, at the very least, I am cursed or, at the very worst, maybe I am really the spectre of death, inadvertently using my powers on those around me.<\/p>\n

After a long day of work at the hair salon I crumpled into the couch with chips and spicy salsa to watch \u201cThe Voice.\u201d I\u2019m gonna give Taylor Swift a run for her money someday. My Ma Maw came home with dark half-moons under her wrinkled eyes.<\/p>\n

Ma Maw put her hands on her hips and cleared her voice to get my full attention, \u201cOh honey, is that your dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked down at the salsa covering a nacho and smiled. The empty carbs brought me so much joy. I looked into eyes full of fear that I\u2019d never get married. The weight of thirty pounds of excess fat shamed the chip back into the sauce. I shrugged my shoulders and grinned sheepishly.<\/p>\n

She winked and said, \u201cI\u2019ll get us a rotisserie at Winn-Dixie.\u201d<\/p>\n

I snorted and said, \u201cYes please!\u201d I turned back to the television. I barely flinched at the closing door. During the commercial break I walked into the kitchen. The fluorescent lights started strobing. A hard breeze snapped the shutters wide open. A glow appeared before me. Now, I\u2019m kind of a horror movie buff and if I saw this in a flick, I\u2019d mock it as cheesy. In real life, though, I\u2019d never felt more terror. My legs shook and nearly buckled. The glowing form began to take the shape of a person.<\/p>\n

Thunk!<\/p>\n

The shutters smacked my fear into full panic and I wanted to run but my legs wouldn\u2019t move. My Ma Maw walked right through the glow towards me. I relaxed my muscles and exhaled. But wait, something wasn\u2019t quite right. I looked at her more closely and she was shimmering.<\/p>\n

Loving-kind eyes glistened over a wry smile. \u201cHoney, everything\u2019s gonna be alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wooden shutters thunked again.<\/p>\n

I started crying. My worst fear had finally arrived. My Ma Maw was dead and it was all my fault. People close to me die. I should have run away from home long ago.<\/p>\n

She came closer and I looked back at her face. Up close, her form was a lot more blurry but her penetrating eyes shone with love.<\/p>\n

Thunk!<\/p>\n

She reached towards my trembling form. \u201cI am happy here with your Pa Paw and you are going to be fine. I believe in you.\u201d Her hand dissolved first, then her body. She evaporated until her Cheshire grin morphed into our hall light.<\/p>\n

Rrriiiiinnng!<\/p>\n

The phone ringing jolted me into motion. The caller was a police captain asking if my Ma Maw, a Mrs. Elizabeth Real, lived at this residence and if I could come down to the morgue to verify a body that had been flung from a multi-car collision on the interstate.<\/p>\n

Thunk!<\/p>\n

I collapsed to the floor and wept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother died birthing me and she never revealed who my sperm-donor father was. If he didn\u2019t want to know me then I sure as heck don\u2019t want to know him. My heart mother was my grandmother and I called her Ma Maw. She rarely understood any of my emotional outbursts but she loved me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2112,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions\/2112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanborns.org\/word_press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}