Blossoms

God knows there are bigger problems than this, Trish considered.

Credit: Jim Pavlidis

Intractable wars. Melting glaciers. Widening inequality. And then there were her ailing parents and anxious son.

But for god’s sake, she thought, isn’t there a single bastard pen in this house that works?

Four pens, fished from a drawer, had failed already. A fifth scratched holes in her notepad. The sixth teased with a hopeful squirt before it, too, clammed up.

With a wild yelp, she snapped it in half.

That got the ink flowing.

Her tears, too, when she saw the blossoms of blue on her brand-new shirt.

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