The Strangest Thing
by Wendy Dann
The snow falls constantly on a sidewalk with three houses. A boy rides his bicycle and the houses move past him: first one way, then the other. Clara, escaping a run of bad relationships, returns home for Thanksgiving but her mother, Charlotte, isn’t cooking dinner. She’s waiting for husband Harry to come home. When he arrives, he confesses, “The strangest thing happened. I forgot how to get home.” But...
The snow falls constantly on a sidewalk with three houses. A boy rides his bicycle and the houses move past him: first one way, then the other. Clara, escaping a run of bad relationships, returns home for Thanksgiving but her mother, Charlotte, isn’t cooking dinner. She’s waiting for husband Harry to come home. When he arrives, he confesses, “The strangest thing happened. I forgot how to get home.” But Harry is forgetting more than the way home. As he drifts away, Clara turns to Charlotte for help, demanding “Forgetting what?” “Us,” replies Charlotte. “He’s forgetting us.” Harry forgets more and more, and is eventually remembered by the family down the street. “He’s a POW,” the boy says to Clara as she marches down the sidewalk to retrieve her father. “Do you know what that is?” Clara glares at the boy, “He’s not a POW. He’s never been in a war.” Furious with her father’s forgetting, Clara kidnaps the boy in hopes of bringing her father back. Waiting for Harry in a world that’s filling up with snow, Charlotte, Clara and the boy build snow forts, cook a turkey, and finally, face how families forget and re-form.
- Inquire About Rights
- Recommend
- Download
- Save to Reading List