Blossoms

God knows there are bigger problems than this, Trish considered.

Intractable wars. Melting glaciers. Widening inequality. And then there were her ailing parents and anxious son.

But for god’s sake, she thought, isn’t there a single bastard pen in this house that works?

Four pens, fished from a drawer, had failed already. A fifth scratched holes in her notepad. The sixth teased with a hopeful squirt before it, too, clammed up.

With a wild yelp, she snapped it in half.

That got the ink flowing.

Her tears, too, when she saw the blossoms of blue on her brand-new shirt.

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