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As the World Burns, I Read Stories to My Children
This is our moment, this is our time
As the world burns, I read stories to my children.
I read to them knowing that there will be no food tomorrow.
We sit in their room. I am in the reading chair. My youngest is on the bed. My oldest is at the art desk.
I read a story I wrote for them. It’s a story about fairies and the challenges women will face in a patriarchal world.
The family dog is one of the characters.
The fairies are based on them. The dog is their protector, he’s based on me. He’s also based on the real dog.
Their mother is in these stories too. She comes in whenever the universe needs to step in to save them. Their mother is the one who plucked them from the void and brought them to this doomed planet. It was an act of magic. I’m forever grateful.
I read and I try not to think of the burning world.
There’s nothing I can do about it anyway.
I need these moments, these precious moments. I need to experience the brief, flickering instant when the spark of our lives burned together.
We sit together and share our mutual warmth.
