Spontenaetation

Well, I haven't blogged for a while, but I'm kinda tired of writing all my personal "feelings" and "emotions" and all that other human stuff. So instead, I'm going to write a completely spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness story-thing of some sort. Because I want to, and because I think if I don't stop taking life so seriously I'm going to drive myself into an early grave. Might as well start with my writing. Here goes!

***

Small Change

The little girl struggled with the honey jar sitting on the table. The lid was stuck fast; she pried and twisted and turned and gripped and slipped her tiny pink fingers over it, but to no avail. She tried her teeth. It hurt. She tried her foot. Not enough of a grip, not even with both. Just as she was about to smash the little mason jar in frustration, her mother entered the room. Her mother was unremarkable: five feet and several inches tall, straight brown hair, blue eyes, voice of an average pitch, white teeth, but not too white. A smile that was pleasant, not a particularly playful, inviting, warm, tricky smile, just pleasant, as if to say "Hey" and leave you expecting something more. An awkward smile, maybe. Awkward may have been the better word for her. Especially because of the one characteristic that made her something slightly more or less than average. She could see the future.

Not the distant future, nor even a few minutes into the future; the immediate, imminent future. On tuesday she'd suddenly stomped the foot of her coworker Brad as she'd greeted him in the hall.

"OW! What the hell is wrong with you, Sue?"

"You were about to...oh, you know...one of those things..."

Brad had been about to stub his toe on a swivel chair Shawn had pushed a little too far out in his excitement over some cupcakes that had appeared in the break room.

Naturally, Sue had averted the disaster by stopping the foot before it had finished its fatal journey to the chair.

How the stomping was a better outcome than the stubbing, one can only wonder.

Brad didn't seem to appreciate it. He stormed off to his cubicle, muttering about witch trials under his breath. Some people just don't understand kindness, thought Sue.

Sue now stood in front of her daughter. Her daughter held the honey jar in mid-plunge, frozen, staring wide-eyed at her mother, anticipating the "help" that would come.

But her fear was in vain. Sue sighed and shook her head distractedly. Hers was a complicated power, and with strange power comes rather confusing responsibility. She'd known that her mere presence would be enough to stop her daughter's reckless mission. She'd also known what she'd been about to do to stop it: she was going to toss a conveniently placed banana at her daughter, hoping to surprise her into dropping the jar (if it broke, the glass would be far enough away from her pudgy pink fingers). But Sue also knew that the banana would have hit her daughter in the face. It wouldn't have hurt her much, but then who wants a banana in the face?

Sue's dilemma became clearer with time and experience. She'd notice something about to happen, notice what she'd do about it, notice what she'd do in reaction to that knowledge, and so on and so forth. Eventually she saw a thousand possibilities in a fraction of a second, all appearing so quickly before her that they seemed to blend together into one moment, an instant fractured into a prismatic quilt of potentiality. Needless to say, this gave Sue frequent headaches.

"Oh sweetie, what are we gonna do with me?" she sighed to the little girl, whose name was Heather. Heather looked up at her with big round watery eyes. Heather's mommy was strange.

"Mom. Mom mom. It okay!" Heather breathed. Ever since their father had left the little girl and her mother had grown considerably closer. She could barely speak, but she empathized with Sue in a way words couldn't approach.

Sue stopped massaging her temples and looked down at those wide watery eyes. "Thanks, honey." At the mention of honey the girl involuntarily glanced at the banana. It was still sitting securely on the counter and didn't seem to be in danger of hurtling through the air.

The two were quiet for a while. It wasn't just an awkward silence. Sue, distracting herself from her throbbing head, was deep in thought.

"It's okay...it's okay...maybe that's the key, right there. You know, I think you're onto something! I know just what I can do! My little girl is so smart!" Sue shouted a bit wildly and clapped her hands. Heather hiccuped.

* * *

The next day, Sue saw Brad as she was walking down the sunlit, coffee-stained hallway toward her cubicle. He flinched and flexed his tender toe as he saw her approach.

"Hi Brad! Smells good in here today, eh?" Sue bubbled, as Brad nodded suspiciously. Sue's reaction to seeing him was, bizarre comment aside, unremarkable. And this, in itself, was remarkable.

Sue continued on her merry way, attempting to mask her glowing excitement with an impassive expression. The result was a grimace that made her other coworkers even more wary of her than usual. Sue didn't even notice. She was too busy wondering over all the things she wasn't noticing. It's okay, she thought. It's all okay.

That evening Sue walked into the kitchen as she did every other evening. Heather was balanced on a tall stool, trying to get at a poorly placed cookie jar. The girl sure knew how to climb.

Sue's first instinct would have been to predict her daughter's fall and instantly "save" her. Now she did no such thing. She didn't need to. Heather wobbled, her watery eyes widening almost to the size of sunflowers. She teetered, gave a little gasp, then tumbled-

-into the cloud of her mother's arms, almost bouncing, catching her breath and lightly giggling. A pair of shining eyes full of rain, blinking and drizzling.

"Mom mom!"

* * *

After a while Sue could control her power almost effortlessly. She became a completely average woman. Five feet and several inches tall, straight hair, blue eyes. She greeted Brad in her average manner as they passed in the average-smelling hallway.

"Sue, you know I really admire this new look. You seem to have a whole new way about you, though I can't put my finger on what exactly it is, other than the obvious. You're lighting up this whole boring old place."

"Thank you kindly, Brad. Oh, you know me, always trying to make situations just a little bit better." She raised her eyebrows at him and walked on, a relaxed spring in her step.

"Oh, you know, um, I was wondering if you'd like to maybe, do something..."

But Sue had already turned the corner.

When she had a moment to think, she scratched her head, sliding a finger down one of her tightly-rolled blue dreadlocks. Maybe being average wouldn't be as difficult as she'd thought.

* * *

(I added the title afterward. :p )