So very last century. Not even internet yet. Or just barely. Everything grunge and punk and all that. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, whatevs.  That was the year I lost my life to teaching. That day I walked into the classroom, the last day I was young.

And my mother, far off in Florida. I fly down on Christmas break or something break. With my grandparents gone,  she is the final layer now between me and my death,  and she is about to split open.

Example: I am sitting there, glass coffee table, slice of babka, everything pastel. My mother looks like she wants to get up. She looks around like she forgot how to do that. Like she forgot where she left her feet.

I have students like that. I hear them chatter in the hallways. 15 years old and they know basketball stats and movie star stats. But I call on them in class and they won’t even answer to their names.

Don’t call my name out, Miss, one of them tells me after class. She is holding onto Madonna with her fingerless gloves, her teased up sideswirl hair. I don’t want to call attention, she says. She goes liquid in front of me. Or three years old. Whatevs.

Doc calls me next day after I’m home from Florida. Your mother, nursing home, yeah. I knew this was coming. Seven more years to this century. Surely my mother won’t last.

Later that day, when I go to the shoemaker, he writes up a ticket to fix my heels. He circles tomorrow and when he asks me, I think twice before giving my name.

Francine Witte is the author of eleven books of poetry and flash fiction. Her flash fiction collection RADIO WATER was published by Roadside Press in January 2024. Her poetry collection is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She is flash fiction editor of FLASH BOULEVARD and South Florida Poetry Journal. Visit her website at francinewitte.com.