#flashfiction
My Aunt Doesn’t Care in Four Different Languages
by NARDINE TALEB
Today
1. So I was thinking today about that cup of black coffee you left sitting in the fridge because you said you can’t—no matter what—throw away good things. Even if they are of no use to you anymore. You gave me old clothes from your closet, each piece costing over fifty dollars, still with their tags. I think you are going through a meltdown and you think you’re just spring cleaning. We agree, with the wave of a hand, to not talk about this. Sometimes I wear your off-shoulder sweater and pretend I’m you, if that means I’m less me, because you’ve got the kind of confidence none of the other women in our family have. Fifty-five and now again single, you go shopping in the gaps of time you used to call me from the car saying, “Your uncle now has a fad for Home Depot and he’s been in there for two hours.” I wear your sweaters, which are baggy on me, and hope the world will want me a little more.
- In public, people stare at us together: a middle-aged woman and a twenty-two-year-old. We laugh unrestrained, yelling, “Ya Allah Ya Allah!” as we catch our breaths. I realize now they are probably afraid of us, speaking in a language so unbelonging to an Ohio suburb. You never care how others see you. You open up to the world fearlessly like a child. “I don’t give two pooping shits what people think,” you say, always repeating words for enough emphasis. This is how you use English, since one word is never fierce enough for you. .... rest: https://electricliterature.com/today-by-nardine-taleb/
