RiteofWriters

One morning she awoke to find workmen in her garden. They had already pulled up the sage bush, dumping it unceremoniously, root side up atop the rosemary, atop the basil so that it looked like a miniature baobab, or whatever they call those trees in Africa with the habit of growing upside down. She wished she could shrink down and scurry off into that diminutive landscape. She wished she could call to the workmen and tell them to get out of her yard, to tell them that sage could be burnt to ward off evil spirits. Instead, she let her teacup slip through her fingers. It greeted the floor with the expected crash, a hundred tiny shards singing a

She was only six when the funeral homes started sending us advertisements, all competing with each other to be the best, to win her business. To win our business, more like; six is hardly old enough to understand what's going on. It's not old enough to understand why everyone is covering their mouths with their hands and failing to hold back tears when you walk into the room, or old enough to understand why people begin to outright sob when you start talking about what you want to be when you grow up. Once it was a doctor, before that it was a fairy princess, but right now it's a policewoman. And of course all the children have heard about t