Grandpa posted a sign outside his woodshop: NO CHILDREN ALLOWED
He’d grumbled we were loud, always underfoot, and too damn many to keep straight.
Mama tsked at our tears and said don't fret. He's just a mean old man.
But we'd seen the polished bowls sanded smooth by gentling hands. We'd stirred our cooking pots with his slender walnut spoons and eaten our meals on lovingly crafted birch plates. We yearned to know what magic turned the man wielding the willow switch into something altogether different.
Mama said he poured so much heart into his work none was left over to share with us. One day, he’d squeeze out the last drop of love and shrivel away into dust.
The day he disappeared, the birds sang loudly outside his shop, uninterrupted by his demanding bellows for quiet. We dared enter his domain, our many voices calling Grandpa? Grandfather? Gramps? and were met with silence. His lathe still spun, and the tang of linseed oil stung our noses. An urn made of heartwood sat upon his table, and a man-shaped pile of sawdust interrupted the broom-swept floor.
Inside the urn, we found his heart, whole and plump. We crouched in a circle around the dust of him, closer than we’d ever been, and set the urn where we guessed his chest would be. We held our breaths and hands lest the debris of his life whipped into fury at our proximity. He stayed peaceful and still. We’re your grandchildren, we whispered, then shouted.
And we wrote our names in his remains so he would finally know us.
Andrea Goyan is an award-winning author and co-host of Metastellar’s Long Lost Friends. Recent and forthcoming stories are available in Small Wonders, Intrepidus Ink, Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Molotov Cocktail. You can find more of her words on her website www.andreagoyan.com or follow her on Twitter @AndreaGoyan or Bluesky @andreagoyan.bsky.social
Wow.
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