Things That Have Fallen
By Mikki Aronoff
Photo credit: Alexandre Boucher and Wes Warren.
The wind blew and the door splintered. She squeezed you out fresh as a lemon, just in time for Jeopardy.
The only time they took your picture, it was a cold day in December. You sat diapered in a sunbeam on the flowered living room rug, your chubby arms hugging a new stuffed dog.
Later, you fell in love with old things, slipped between light and rock, collecting fossils and branches that have fallen. Later still, you fell — to pills.
As all things must, you turned to dust. For the memorial, mother dug up that old baby picture, propped it up next to pine needles pressed under glass and a tiny pile of trilobites. Cute as a button! everyone cried, filing by one by one, passing around that old cracked black and white, kissing your cheeks and pinching the puff of white.
About the Author
Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.
