Short fiction: A 79-year-old widow is shocked by her desire to dress up like a bride on her birthday

Today was her birthday. She looked at the calendar and asked herself, was it her birthday? Had she forgotten her own birthday? She turned her eyes at the date blankly, stared at the letters like a statue. Something told her that the date was familiar. She tried to think. Her eyes moistened as she remembered. She breathed heavily. A strange calm settled upon her, she stood there, staring at those letters, as if they resembled something dead. Something lifeless, like her mother.

It has been a long time.

Her vision seemed to fade, and in the next instant, she found herself crying. Cupping her face with her pale palms, she opened her dimmed eyes to a burning sensation. She rubbed her cheeks, but tears rolled down, breaking all forces. She looked at her palms. It dawned upon her that she possessed a very ugly palm, crooked and rough. She had an old woman’s palm, she thought. Naturally.

She was old. Seventy-nine years old.

How old, helpless, and weak she had become, it dawned upon her now. She is old and dying. She will die soon then, she thought, as if comforting herself. She looked at her palms again. She checked the lines on her left palm carefully....

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