Clara and the Sun From Below
A short story about the unfortunate
Clumsy wasn’t the right word. After all, Clara fell where it was slippery, turned into roads closed for construction, and left the house only for pouring rain to commence minutes later. Unlucky, perhaps? Real misfortune regardless, it was a hell of a nickname: “Clumsy Clara” had stuck since high school, and when cups break and coffee spills wherever you go, sooner or later, you start believing.
Fired from yet another job for yet another mistake she didn’t make, Clara wandered home through the big park one dark autumn evening, desolate. She was already feeling low, but when her new phone turned off and refused to turn back on, her misery quickly turned into panic. Clumsy or not, a gloomy, deserted park was no place for a lonely lady, and Clara being Clara, she needed directions.
After stumbling around aimlessly for a good 45 minutes while flinching from various noises, all of which turned out to be on the spectrum of bird sounds, Clara spotted a tick-tocking ray of light shooting out of the ground in the distance. Only half-joking to herself, she thought, “Oh great, this is it. The aliens are here to pick me up.” Her body told her to run, but we all know what happens to moths and flames, and so step by step, Clara inched closer to the oscillating light. By the time she could almost…
