[COMPLETED]
[WATTYS 2022 WINNER]
James Quinn can't die. Actually... that's not true. He's died many times - somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 - only to be reborn as himself to live his life over again.
For millennia, he's had to endure this c...
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June 2, 1980 [3]
Martha's eyes shot open.
Her heart raced as she looked around – smiling beetles to her right, bedroom door to her left. She struggled to roll on her side and then up to a seated position, her pumpkin shaped belly of baby fat offering minimal leverage.
The clown-faced night-light greeted her from across the room. It was an inanimate object; cheap plastic shipped from China. But Martha suspended her sense of reality because she was certain it was laughing at her, mocking her stupidity and deriding her sloppiness. Her search for James had been a fiasco and now she was stuck, alone for the next fifteen years – maybe more... probably a lot more! And that fiendish clown found it hilarious.
A ball of heat bloomed in her chest. She took a deep breath then let out a scream with the volume and pitch to shatter glass slippers to sand.
Her father entered the room. "Oh my. Oh dear." He picked her up as she continued to wail. "It's okay, sweetie. It's okay."
Nope! Wrong! This is about as far from 'okay' as I could be!
Steven flinched his head away from her shrieking. "Holy moly, how can such a little girl make such a big noise?"
I made it to his door! It was supposed to be over!
"I'm here, sweetie. Daddy's here," Steven said as he patted her back and paced the room. "Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain..." he began to sing softly.
Martha continued to cry but the ball of heat began to wither. As she slowed to a whimper, she lifted her head from his shoulder and stared at his face.
He stopped singing. "What is it sweetie?"
His eyes looked deprived of sleep, but the rest of his face was as young as she'd ever seen it – no laugh lines, no crow's feet. Wow, did my dad use to moisturize or something?
"Marty?" he said.
Then it hit her – the slate was clean. Obviously, she would prefer that her planning had led to James' arms instead of his mother's gun. But all of her mistakes had been cleared away. What lay ahead was still daunting. But she was vastly more prepared for the journey this time around.
Steven awaited her response with amusement in his eyes and Martha knew it was more than just his skin that was undamaged. She had her father again, and with him, she was ready – ready to be two years old, then three, then four...
"Scawey dweem, Daddy," she playacted. "Vawey scawey dweem."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, sweetie pie," Steven comforted. "Daddy's here."
As she lay her head on his shoulder, the nausea portending her next jump began to swell. Steven resumed his lullaby and Martha held him tight until a flash of purple left everything black again.
Author's note:
Anyone have any unusual songs or singers that were used as lullabies? My parents were into James Taylor. I sang a lot of Beck to my daughters (the slower stuff, obviously) or anything that would work (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was the go to for a stretch).
