Northern_Lights_2021

4 Eventually, I’d grown thankful for the change. I had gotten used to staying in the house. After all, working from home and having nowhere to go gave me more time with my little boy. My little boy, whose hand is on the doorknob. “Where are you going, anyway, Logan?” He turns the knob. “Out.” “Out where?” He whips around to face me, brow contorted in anger. “What does it matter to you?” “Logan!” How dare he speak to me that way? “The pandemic is over, Mom,” he snaps. “It’s been over for thirteen years. Just because you’ve been too afraid to leave the house for a decade doesn’t mean I have to be. You gave up on the world and you wanted me to believe it never even existed.” Before I can respond, he tears the mask from his face and stomps outside, slamming the door behind him. “Logan, you are grounded!” I yell, the threat echoing into an empty void. I throw the door open to go after him, but he’s gone, and I’m left dazed and blinking on the front porch. Puffy white clouds soften the harsh sunlight. Bird families argue in the branches of the overgrown trees. Some neighbor I’ve never met has mown their lawn, and the smell of freshly cut grass wafts toward me on the crisp breeze. Beneath my feet lies Logan’s discarded mask, and I pick it up, dangling it by the elastic, letting the sun I had nearly forgotten shine through its sheer, worn fabric. I didn’t give up on this world, I think. Not ever. But the mask sneers back at me and seems to say: “No, but you allowed your mouth to be covered.”