Sunshine
Fiction by Athena Schreindler
Une femme revêtue du Soleil (A woman clothed with the sun) by Odilon Redon, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
Not everyone thinks so, but to me, family events are the best. Everybody is coming out today, which means I may get to see one of my distant cousins and their new baby—which is always an exciting prospect. I greet my grandmother first, as always. She was dressed up in her fanciest and brightest yellow, of course. I helped her apply just a titch more blush before heading back out to the foyer to greet my cousins.
The sun is shining brightly, even though it has no sensible reason to in this season, and I am finding myself unreasonably annoyed by this fact. I have not seen my cousins this dressed up since the second eldest got married the previous year. “Where’s grandma? I want to give her a kiss,” inquired one of the cousins—though it was obvious they were all anxious to hear the answer. My mother gestured toward the room I just came from. I felt neurons fire from my brain to my ankle as they attempted to contract the muscles, but the spasm stopped before my knee, before the familiar motion could be exercised. I was excited to see my grandma, it’s been almost two weeks. For a moment, I forgot I already saw her today—maybe because I didn’t really.
My family went into the room, but my feet cemented me in the cruel sunlight. I hear one cousin whisper to another, “Do you think she needs more blush?”
Athena Schreindler is a student at the University of Windsor and hopes to pursue writing and illustrating children's books.