In Another Year

Short Story by Olivia McKenna-Stevens

If you enjoy this feature and would like to see more, let me know with a comment, 💌 share, ♥️ like, or better yet, a 🔄 restack!

You can purchase Written Tales Magazine in print or digital, or become a paid subscriber and download your favorite editions. To view our upcoming stories & poems, please visit our publishing schedule calendar.

---

I’ve been thinking about death recently, both literal and metaphorical. Jesus on the cross and the death of a loved one. What happens to us when we die? Everyone asks that, and yet I find myself lingering on it. I read the bible as a child in a wooden pew, the crucifying heat of Texas summer making my palms sweat and my cheeks red. I wondered if the men who wrote it ever felt unsure of their words. Am I being superficial in an attempt to seem more interesting than I actually am? Does my vanity impose itself onto my words? I worry I’ve exhausted my ability. 

I think back to who I was as a child, death seemingly omnipresent in my life, understanding the sorrow felt around me at a dinner table and never speaking it out loud. I watch life and death ebb and flow around me passively and wonder if something is wrong with me. I always thought that death made the world shockingly brighter; the trees seemed to glow, and the flowers bloom in every shade tenfold. I wonder if the earth can feel death coming. If it opens itself up to the inevitable passing of a thing, or maybe we only pay attention when we are grieving. If God is real, why would He let us see the world in such vibrancy only when we have known despair?