I may be dying.

No, we are all dying from the moment we are born. I am dying. Instead, I should say: My inevitable last breath may become a reality sooner than anticipated.

That’s not accurate: I have been anticipating death since I was 12.

Perhaps: The existential angst that has plagued me since I was 12 may soon cease to be a source of constant reflection and anguish as I will no longer be.

I can’t decide what would make me happier: dying soon or living to ease the the long day’s journey into night of those I love.

My nose twitches from the earthy mist while I shiver in the Autumn breeze. Chattering from a blush of robins echos off fir trees. And to think I nearly retracted my original plan to miss such a breath-taking moment. I giggle as his vile blood melts into the forest floor.

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Ascending the grand, creaky staircase, my fingers left trails in the thick layer of dust on the handrail. The blood-red message had been graffitied across the ancient portrait for three days now:

I'm in the walls.

Plasterboard was shredded to pieces; every resident on search duty, but no trace of the spectral painter. My husband, master of the house, had laid all manner of traps in an attempt to catch the fiend - to no end.

Phantom breezes; eerie wailing; spontaneous fireplace eruptions. Even the beloved pet hound hanging from the bannister. I was particularly proud of that last one.

Hello, Brilliant, Beautiful Writers:

A piece by one of our masterminds and maestros waits below the message in this letter to you all, after a sentence that says, "Here's the link."

Here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO0-38LJTEM

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

I awoke to the sound of beeping. White. Everything was white. And...crying? Then clearer—someone weeping in the corner, someone...familiar. A lady wearing white comforted her.

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. She's braindead."

Poor woman. I tried to sit up to comfort her, but...nothing's moving. I felt cold as realization struck me.

Mom!

The nurse ushered Mom out, then walked towards me. I desperately tried making eye contact, telling her I wasn't braindead, but she wouldn't look at me. A wild fear built up inside of me. Stop!

She pulled a plug from the wall, and everything went black.

One day, Helen took the status quo in her hands and set it on fire. She was sick of being its puppet. She went to the right school, married the right man, raised the right children. All that earned her was chronic back pain and crippling debt. She was a good mom, of course. She waited for the young ones to grow up into their own directionless followers of the approved life script. Then, she ran away to start anew in Venice. Her family didn’t even file a missing person report. They were too busy to notice she was gone.

Her presence filled the garden.

Tender was her flight, earth shatteringly encompassing my soul, reminiscent of sunshine in spring, misty dewdrops on petals, and light breezes.

Whispering and echoing a tale of enchantment, she flew down the path, buzzing about in the spectrum of afternoon’s fading light. Her ethereal, fairy like approach was wondrous delight, and the rapture of bejeweled wings could be heard as she drank her fill from the brightest of blooms.

I paused and I watched her iridescent, colorful form, ever sure that the spin of the earth stopped in wonder like the beat of my heart.

the meaning of life is to have goals

i've been a cog in many great machines in my time here

every box of standard life achievement i've checked

... but 1...

unlike all the others, that achievement is out of my hands entirely

what then when all boxes are checked?

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The back of my head faces the sun.

Each freckle cements its investigative hole inside my head,

the Vitamin D floats, empty blanks, down to my toes.

More time, less time.

Exactly, exquisitely, innately.

Solar flares warm my body,

The cellular determination of my skin,

likens me to the sky.

The back of my head faces the sun.

Each freckle cements its investigative hole inside my head,

the Vitamin D floats, empty blanks, down to my toes.

More time, less time.

Exactly, exquisitely, innately.

Solar flares warm my body,

The cellular determination of my skin,

likens me to the sky.

"Aunt Bailey!" Katie yelled, hurting my old ears.

"Quietly please Katie," I whispered. She nodded in my direction before she started to run to Bailey.

"Hi, Bean," Bailey greeted Katie.

Katie turned towards me, "Ice cream now?" She whined. I nodded with a sigh. Katie jumped up and down then ran out of the room.

"Slow-" I started to yell after her, but was interrupted with a fit of coughing. Bailey looked at me with worry etched in every line of her face. I shook my head, indicating I was fine.

"How are you May?" She asked tentatively.

"I am perfectly fine thank you very much, enough people worrying, don't need you too," I stated quickly. She smirked as she moved to the one chair in my little room.

"What did the doctor say today?"

"That I need to be here for the rest of my life," I sighed as I exaggerated to her. She shook her head at me.

"Stop it, you will get better," She told me.

"Sure," We sat in silence, her not knowing what to say to a dying woman. Katie ran into the room after a couple minutes with three cups of chocolate ice cream.

"I got the last three!" She exclaimed. I smiled at her when she handed me one. "Ok ok, tell me again,"

I grinned at Bailey, every time we got together Katie asked this. "Are you sure you wanna hear it?" Bailey asked, teasing.

Katie bobbed her head up and down. Bailey asked, "I don't know Katie, I'm tired," as she glanced at me. My grin grew as I played along.

"Yea Bailey is right, I need rest,"

Katie shook her head. "No no, it's our," her face scrunched up, "What's the word again?"

"Tradition," me and Bailey said in unison.

"Yes, that, pleaseeeeeeeee," Katie asked.

Bailey and I looked at each other, she nodded towards me. I took a deep breath and began our story.

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"Maybella Rumes, mother, friend, and wife. 1995-2019." I read the tombstone out loud to Katie. Her face was streaked with tears, while my eyes stayed bone dry. Katie ran off to be with her father. I thought of how shtoo younge was to have lost her mother.

I knew that May wouldn't live very much longer, but it killed me inside. She was my best friend and now she was gone. Closing my eyes, I thought back to when we met.

How she quite literally ran into me and we were both late for our first jobs. How May and I had lain under the stars on my birthday and she drunkenly said we were Ohana, family.

All those memories and more of how we had become best friends, even through her Progeria. I know that's what killed her in the end, how she was lucky to make it to 25, but I liked to believe that she chose to leave and it wasn't the sickness that did it.

Leaning down to her grave I lay a letter by the wilted roses. I thought of how I needed to bring fresh ones tomorrow.

"We are Ohana, family," I whispered.