The Writers' Circle

Kathy arrived home clutching her prize. It wasn't much, just a ridiculously large jar filled with jellybeans. But then again, she still won. She hadn't won anything in her life. Holding the jar against her breasts, she stepped over every crack on the path leading up to the front door. Fumbling with the doorknob, she rammed it open. "I'm home! I'm home! Dad! You'll never guess...". With joy still coursing through her, Kathy spun into every room of the townhouse, wanting to see her father's face wrinkle with pride. She froze in the middle of the stainless steel kitchen. The sharp, metal smell now foreign to her. Realisation shuddered her back into motion. "I forgot, you're not here anymore", she sighed defeatedly. Checking her wallet, she fished for her last twenty dollars. Just enough for a one-way cab ride.

       Stepping out of the taxi and trudging through the automatic doors, just like she had every day for two years, Kathy still held on for dear life to the jar of jellybeans. She marched right on past Reception. She knew exactly where to go.

       She walked into the room where they kept her father, her school shoes squeaking on the newly-waxed linoleum. She stood at the end of the bed, mesmerised by the slight rise-and-fall of her daddy's chest. The monitor beeped a steady rhythm, a backbeat to the pounding of her heart in its white cage. "D-Daddy...", she murmured, her voice shaking, the jellybeans rattling in her shaking hands. She slid into the armchair facing the bed, legs and arms filled with grace, eyes filled with tears. "Daddy...", Kathy said again, clear and true. "I won this jar of jellybeans". She laughed. "Yeah, it's stupid, I know. But I won. Just me, no one else. Isn't that something?".

       Several minutes passed. Then an hour. She got up to leave, crying silently and freely now. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow, Daddy. And the next day, and the next day...", her voice cracking.
       Turning towards the door, she did a double-take. His mouth twitched ever so quickly, a shooting star. Then, as if he had never been comatose, his face wrinkled with pride. With the breathing tube still in his throat, his voice a blessing on her ears, he whispered, "Kathy ... you hate jellybeans".