The truly amazing Melissa Moorer, whose work makes me so happy I could WEEP, has a new story in the latest issue of Hot Metal Bridge, "Falling Bodies to Light." And I snippet to convince you to go read the whole thing (which you SHOULD DO):
We are going to be rich.
And I would probably believe it if I hadn’t heard the same words so many times before. If he hadn’t taken us every time to the malls and stores to pick out what we would buy when: cars and bikes and trips around the world. If he hadn’t kept us out of school working on equipment and equations and debugging endless lines of code that didn’t lead to the next big thing or even anywhere at all. We don’t even have our own house anymore. My brother and I have to share a bedroom in our grandparents’ house because there is room for only one genius in my family — my father — and he takes up all the extra space for his work.
“It’ll make petroleum obsolete. Imagine!” His eyes are wide as he dances around the kitchen table and I feel myself getting excited all over again. It’s embarrassing so I try not to look at my brother, Josh. He’ll just make fun of me. “No more pollution!” My father raises his strong arms dirty with grease to the ceiling and I get giddy with hope, leaping into the circle of his arms.
“And we’ll get rich selling the blue in the sky,” he sings and swings me around the kitchen like I am five again.
Want more after you read that one? Go read her story from the Northville Review earlier this year.