Mitch asks mom what animal she’d want to be and I punch him in the arm for asking. The last thing mom needs right now is to think about being in a body other than her own. Mom answers though by shifting her body into a lime green raccoon.
Why a raccoon, I ask.
On our honeymoon, one broke into our cabin, and your father chased it away with a broom. I wasn’t sure about him until that moment.
Why did you marry him if you weren’t sure, Mitch asks.
Mom reverts to the memory of her physical body. I’m tired, she says, then dissipates.
I wait until Mitch and me are inside to answer mom’s question: you were planned. I’m the accident.
J. Bradley is a two time winner of Wigleaf‘s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions. He’s the author of Neil & Other Stories (WhiskeyTit Books, 2018). He lives at jbradleywrites.com.