My older sister Nancy and I hit mailboxes on Halloween. The world keeps taking. Nan says we need to shake things up.
I lean out the front seat and ready the bat, so it strikes with the right momentum.
Thwack. Thwack. Mailboxes explode, metal heads shattered.
“They’ll never recover,” I joke, watching streams of envelopes disperse into the wind.
“It’s sappy cards.” Nan’s smile wobbles. “We love you a thousand miles away. Everyone else always stays behind.”
“Sometimes they return.”
She takes my hand.
“I wish.”
I feel fragility, squeeze her hand back. Ready my bat. It feels so small now.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. A self-proclaimed Romantic and Tchaikovsky addict, Yash loves autumn and dissecting dysfunction.