WEST WINDS

SSDD A s was often the case, Dorothy’s first thought when she woke up was, “Nothing new under the sun.” She’d had the thought a few times already today, and this time when she opened her eyes she was in the dining room, with its familiar linoleum-tiled floor and the baskets of plastic geraniums on the windowsills. There was a soggy grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup in front of her. Must be lunch time. “Hey Dottie!” It was that damned Fred. She rolled her eyes, but it was pointless. Her once-bright eyes – they had been bright, hadn’t they? She couldn’t remember – were surrounded by creases and folds, like cloudy marbles buried in a pile of old leaves. Dottie was not her name and never had been; there was nothing dotty about her. She was not flighty or eccentric, nor was she small and round like a cute little polkadot. She shook her head. She didn’t give a damn what he called her. But there was a new woman at the table, and Fred’s attention was already on her. Y

T he roses were blooming, all at once, on both sides of the sidewalk: red, yellow, pink. It was too much, the profusion.   Jessica closed her eyes. She would feel her way home under the sun, she decided, guided by the trees; follow the cool shady spots like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs. She took a few steps, shuffling so she wouldn’t trip. Then she opened her eyes and ran the rest of the way to the door of her brown stuccoed house, put the key in the lock, opened the door, strode to the tiny breakfast nook, and stared across the painted wood table at the wall. The blankness felt right. Not right, nothing felt right. Correct. She needed to talk to someone. Everyone she knew had heard plenty about her sister and her cancer, and Jessica's brain was like a haunted house when she groped for some other subject. Her friends were kind, but they kept on talking, new shows on Netflix, amazing Burmese place, trip to Italy, then Trump Trump Trump. That’s when she had to excuse herse