Tell the Machine Goodnight

by Katie Williams

Cruelest are the punishments we visit upon ourselves.

Words were like me, shifting.

Then one day I saw the flicker on the horizon. I broke away from my mother’s lead, running toward it, and when the screen did not split in two, I knew that she was following me. We came upon the burning house. I stood back while my mother entered it. A moment later she appeared at the window, swathed in flickering fire. She stood there and waved at me. I glanced over my shoulder and lifted my mask and saw through the clear plastic of her mask that the smile was on not just her avatar but her own real face. She didn’t have to tell me that her headache was finally gone, as if the imaginary flames had burned it away. —