Flashlight

by Susan Choi

“Someday, you’ll feel thankful to your mother. But I want you to act thankful now.” These are the last words he ever says to her.

The world had not been fit for either of them; this suggested they were fit for each other.

Crossing from ignorance to recognition required just the one step—yet she remained with a foot in the old territory, perhaps even an eye on each side of the line. It was possible to think, in the same dumbstruck exhalation, both Of course and Impossible.

You are different, but the world has not changed, and the world is different, but you have not changed.

At first she saw herself as a bug in a jar. Then one day the jar was gone.

Coming back to herself at such moments, she thinks, Life is over. But apparently not. There are more things to cherish and lose.