Lightning in a Mason Jar

by Catherine Mann

By increments my world grew smaller and smaller, until that day, the worst day, when I became one of them. My cottony swaddle of complacency split open to reveal a light so blinding it sliced through me like the electroshock therapy that followed.

They say secrets don’t make friends, but in my opinion that wasn’t the case. Sometimes they make best friends, the necessary sort.

Some people had to come to the realization that their parents were imperfect humans who were doing life for the first time too.

I indulged my artist’s eye. From the ancient oaks that learned to twist into hugs as they grew.