A Darker Timeline_Scales (Part 2 of 'One Word')_The Stipulation_Restitution
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A Darker Timeline
Your head is spinning and your vision is blurred. Red and silver dots flicker before your eyes, and you feel as if a steamroller has been through your brain. You put your index fingers on your temples and start massaging. The veins along your forehead are throbbing fiercely, threatening to explode any second now. You concentrate harder.You realize you are crouched on the floor. Trying hard not to lose your balance, you extend your right arm forward and grab onto the first thing it touches. It is smooth and hard, and gives you a sense of stability. You outstretch your other arm and pull yoursel...
Scales (Part 2 of 'One Word')
Shock rippled out over my relatives’ faces. I glanced around at their horrified expressions, already seeing the signs of rejection that were brewing under their normally kindly faces. They didn’t understand just yet - they were questioning if they had heard me correctly, if it was not simply a bad dream. A soft murmur swelled and broke over the stunned silence. They were turning to each other now, asking if they had heard the same thing. They would turn on me in a moment, demanding to know what I meant- Up until now, I had avoided looking into my father’s face. I felt I could not bear to see t...
The Stipulation
The Anderson gene pool is extensive. Just about everyone knows at least one Anderson of some variation, so it is pretty safwww.onedoor.cce to say that I probably have multitudes of cousins I have never met from nearly every continent. It shouldn’t have been too surprising to me that I should receive a call that my cousin Helen had passed away suddenly, and that I was expected to fly to Illinois and attend her funeral. The surprise was that I had never heard of a Cousin Helen before, and she had apparently left me something in her will. Now, from what I was able to figure out from good old Ancestry, Cousin H...
Restitution
I look to the sand-clock tensely. It's almost half empty. Think halfway full, Bernice.I mentally smack my palm against my forehead in silent chastisement. I can’t be a walking box of pessimism while attempting to combat pessimism itself. I’ll never win that way.A darker thought still challenges the optimistic counsel, and I scoff aloud. Who is to say that I'm combating pessimism anyway? That's awfully right-thinking of me. I also can't afford to be totally rid of my despair, not when I'm not yet entirely sure if life itself is not, indeed, the trap. I take a step forward, and, without pause, ...