Flash fiction from my incomparable sister Laura! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They Used to Call Them Stars<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Laura J. Graham<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPinpoints of light against the dark,\u201d said the old woman, combing her long silvery hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the little boy laughed as he set up his cans again for target practice with his sling shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverybody knows that monsters come from the dark,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are lions, and man-eating scorpions, and even a woman with poisonous snakes for hair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old woman folded up her tattered blanket off the park bench she had been resting on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut we used to go there,\u201d she said. \u201cBack when we could see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWeren\u2019t you afraid?\u201d the little boy asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh yes,\u201d said the old woman. \u201cWe were terribly afraid. We were afraid of death, and cold, and explosions. But there were people lined up to go, waiting their chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then she put her blanket into her satchel and strolled off to look for supper. Behind her she could hear the plink, plink plink as the boy aimed his pebbles at his row of tin cans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next evening he was back. \u201cI talked to my teacher,\u201d he told the old woman. \u201cHe said we are much safer now. We used to worry that bad people would be hiding behind corners so we lit up all the corners. And then we worried things would come swooping in out of the sky at night so we lit up that too. And now everybody sleeps much more soundly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey used to call them stars,\u201d said the old woman and lay down on the park bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon she fell asleep and the little boy sat in the grass for a long time and looked at the lamps getting brighter and brighter as the sun disappeared. Then he took his sling shot out of his pocket and aimed at his very first street light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Flash fiction from my incomparable sister Laura! They Used to Call Them Stars By Laura J. Graham \u201cPinpoints of light against the dark,\u201d said the old woman, combing her long silvery hair. And the little boy laughed as he set up his cans again for target practice with his sling shot. \u201cEverybody knows that monsters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[330],"tags":[413,411,412],"class_list":["post-949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogs","tag-dark-skies","tag-flash-fiction","tag-stars"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}