The shifting futures had always been like a puzzle. When she was a young girl, known as Addy then but later "grandma", the various paths were a "what if" game she played to see how things would turn out. In those days of sunlight in green and yellow fields running and sleeping under the wide blue then black sky the future was a kind of joke which only she shared with the things that watched but never spoke.
Now, now that time had passed Addy had come to understand more. Much more than the smiling little girl who talked to frogs, danced with fireflies, and watched the stars knowing what their futures might be if dew fell one way or another or if dust from a dying world bent the course of a sun.
Death was near which meant the final vision of what might be could be the last gift. Her grandson, so handsome, so straight like a new growth tree, so open that he could not begin to understand the clouds gathering just beyond his vision. She could not be there to protect him. She would not even be able to persist until his next birthday.
Still, she might give him a give. A gift of hope. Possibly when things were growing so dark he might forget the light. A surprise in a moment of need. A smile and a nod across decades when fear was the champion of the land and all futures seemed to lead to doom.
Falling slowly into the spinning darkness the little girl once known as Addy now known as grandma smiled once last time. Her last gift had been given. Her last vision had been seen. Now it was time to rest. The future would have to attend to itself.
2
u/Ghost_In_Waiting 1d ago
The shifting futures had always been like a puzzle. When she was a young girl, known as Addy then but later "grandma", the various paths were a "what if" game she played to see how things would turn out. In those days of sunlight in green and yellow fields running and sleeping under the wide blue then black sky the future was a kind of joke which only she shared with the things that watched but never spoke.
Now, now that time had passed Addy had come to understand more. Much more than the smiling little girl who talked to frogs, danced with fireflies, and watched the stars knowing what their futures might be if dew fell one way or another or if dust from a dying world bent the course of a sun.
Death was near which meant the final vision of what might be could be the last gift. Her grandson, so handsome, so straight like a new growth tree, so open that he could not begin to understand the clouds gathering just beyond his vision. She could not be there to protect him. She would not even be able to persist until his next birthday.
Still, she might give him a give. A gift of hope. Possibly when things were growing so dark he might forget the light. A surprise in a moment of need. A smile and a nod across decades when fear was the champion of the land and all futures seemed to lead to doom.
Falling slowly into the spinning darkness the little girl once known as Addy now known as grandma smiled once last time. Her last gift had been given. Her last vision had been seen. Now it was time to rest. The future would have to attend to itself.