Tag Archives: aging

Mom’s Secret

auto aftermath

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“What the hell happened to the car, Mom?”

“Sorry, Mark. I thought I had enough clearance pulling out of the parking garage. I must have hit something?”

“Hit something? Mom!”

Since Dad’s death, Mark was trying to help Mom out, but she was getting more forgetful and disorganized each day. Clearly she wasn’t fit to drive, but getting her to give it up was going to be tough.

“Damn! That last invader agent hit my car with a disruptor blast before I could get away,” she thought. “Hate lying to my son, but he can’t learn my secret.”

I wrote this in response to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers writing challenge. The idea is to use the photo prompt above and write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My story’s word count is 98.

My Dad passed away about three weeks ago. Afterward, my brother and I helped my Mom deal with a lot of the details in settling Dad’s affairs. My wife and I came back to help out some more, and Mom continues to have problems remembering important details. Eventually, we plan on having her move in with us, but giving up her independence will be hard for her.

No, she hasn’t had any car accidents, but then again, she doesn’t need to be driving either. In my wee bit of flash fiction, I recreated Mom as having a secret that makes being absentminded just a ruse. Would that this could be true.

To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Book Review: Transhuman

transhumanI know I’ve read one or more science fiction novels written by Ben Bova before, but I can’t recall which one(s). However, the cover of Transhuman, published in 2014, boasts of him being a six-time hugo award winner, so this should be a pretty good novel, right?

Turns out, all six of those awards were for Best Professional Editor when he was working at Analog, not for any of his written works, although he is certainly a prolific author.

I was interested in this tale because it involves a grandpa and his little granddaughter. Being a grandparent myself, I know I’d do anything to protect them, which is exactly what 74-year-old Luke Abramson does for his eight-year-old granddaughter Angie.

You see, Angie’s dying of an inoperable cancerous brain tumor. She’s got six months or less to live. But Luke is a cellular biologist and believes a new technique he’s developed can cure Angie’s cancer.

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New Brain

brain

Image: Fox News

Alec Reed was at the end of his rope. At age 62, he could no longer keep up with the younger software developers at Intellidrive and accusations of “ageism” or not, if his performance fell too much further, he’d be out of a job.

Before the divorce, he’d have just put in for early retirement, but when Neena left him, she took just about everything including a non-trival percentage of their savings. Now he needed to keep working another five years at least if he hoped to maintain even a halfway decent portion of his current standard of living once he decided to retire.

Getting older was a curse in an industry of the young. Alec’s thinking, reasoning abilities, problem solving skills were all lagging behind the twenty-somethings that were being hired at a startling rate by Intellidrive.

Seniority and a generally good work record kept Alec at the company for the past twenty-two years, but his new, young supervisor wasn’t letting him rest on his so-called laurels. Alec was supposed to produce on par with his junior peers and if he couldn’t, he was easily replaced.

That’s why he had stolen his son’s supply of New Brain.

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Ascending Sparks

sparksThis experience, to give life, to watch it grow, to be torn apart by it, to receive pleasure from it, and to give life again—for this the soul descended from its ethereal heights.

And when it shall return to there, enveloped in these memories, it will finally know their depth. And with them travel ever higher and higher.

“Life’s Memories”
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Based on the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory
Chabad.org

I’m so tired. I can’t remember when I didn’t feel exhausted. I wake up exhausted. I barely have the strength to lift a spoonful of soup to my mouth. My bladder only can hold on so long anymore before I either make it to a toilet or embarrass myself. I have a hard time remembering what I did last week or even yesterday.

I am so old.

But I do remember many things before yesterday and last week.

I remember watching “Gunsmoke” when I was five, and trying to outdraw Marshall Dillon with my toy six-shooter (I never could).

My Dad was in the Air Force and we lived in Spain near Seville when I was little. Instead of Santa Claus, one of the Three Kings from the Bible (well, not a real one) would ride the streets of our neighborhood in a horse-drawn wagon. I got my picture taken with him once.

My Dad pointed up to a shiny thing in the night sky and told me it was called “Sputnik”. I didn’t find out until decades later that the satellite couldn’t be seen by the unaided eye and what we were looking at was one of its rocket boosters tumbling end-over-end in low orbit.

I remember when we had vinyl 45s and to play them on a record player, you had to put this funny disk thing in the big hole in the middle so it could fit on whatever the little stem sticking up in the middle of the turntable was called.

I remember the one-eyed, one-horned blind purple people eater.

I remember my Dad growing roses in our yard when we lived in Spain.

I remember getting sick on the airplane when we flew back to America.

I remember getting lost after my first day in first grade when we lived in Omaha. My Dad came and found me. I was so scared. I was only six.

I remember always getting picked last for sports during recess at school because I couldn’t run very fast and I was lousy at throwing and catching.

I had a crush on a girl when I was in the second grade. I got teased about it a lot.

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