Vanishing Point
The day of her mother’s funeral, Adamaris dressed in shades of sunset.
Her shift carried the pale orange tint of clouds reflecting sunlight. Her sash was the color of warm rust, her collar a smear of scarlet. The first two layers of her dress shimmered with vibrant pinks, corals, and lace that frothed like gold foam.
Most people gawked at the flamboyant display. Some even sneered or shook their heads.
Adamaris disappeared halfway through the ceremony.
Her grandmother eventually found her, right when the sun had begun its descent. She sat on an outcropping of rock by the swimming pond her mother had once loved.
Slowly, carefully, her grandmother lowered her body onto a piece of flat rock. Adamaris could barely watch.
In the span of a breath, she too could disappear.
The thought weakened something inside of her, something fundamental. She desperately wanted to ask her mother for advice.
Adamaris looked for her in the pond, in the sea of colors that painted the sky; she looked for her mother in the things she once loved, but there was only the blunt, sobering realization that she now lived in a world without any kind of center.
“I wanted to celebrate her life, you know,” Adamaris told her grandmother. “It’s not just about death.”
They sat together in silence, in this shared awareness.
It was all they had left.
By Alyssa Jordan
- Alyssa Jordan is a writer living in the United States. She pens literary horoscopes for F(r)iction Series. Her stories can be found or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, X–R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Reflex Fiction, and more. When she’s not writing, she’s hanging out with her partner or watching too many movies.
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