Spilled Soda

by Lisa Lerma Weber

I remember exploring Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island as a little girl, running through a narrow opening between giant rocks and bumping into an older boy who spilled his soda on my head and didn't even say "sorry," just made a hasty escape. I went on with the rest of my day, my hair sticky and my shirt stained, not crying or complaining because I learned young that life will spill all over you. I wonder what life spilled on that careless boy as I go through some of the photos from those trips to the "Happiest Place on Earth." I find a few of the cousin who was much like a brother, looking surprised or serious, the light catching on his glasses, and I smile at the one where he looks tough, his chest puffed out, me next to him trying to look just as tough, our little sisters standing in front of us. My smile fades quickly because my cousin recently passed away from Covid-19, too many years after the last time I saw him at my great-aunt's funeral, the same great-aunt who became a mother to my father and his siblings because my grandfather murdered my grandmother. And isn't it like life to spill sadness all over me.

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Lisa Lerma Weber lives in San Diego, CA. Her work has recently appeared in Brave Voices, Dead Fern Press, Dwelling Lit, Fudoki, Sledgehammer Lit, and others. She is a prose editor for Versification. Follow her on Twitter.