Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
by Mikki Aronoff
It’s been great-aunt Flo’s long-standing wish, ever since a hard bout with hair-shedding chemo, to make the Guinness Book of World Records, and today, a week before her 94th, she’s ready to submit. “It’s now or never,” she tells me over her morning tea and toast, and asks me to fetch the camera. She marches to the bathroom humming “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and returns with a straight razor and leather strop in one hand, a can of Barbasol in the other, and a black plastic trash bag slit open and draped over her “Makin’ Cancer My Bitch” t-shirt. By now, she doesn’t need a mirror.
Documentation has been tedious and old school, and we’ll all be happy when the walls are free of sticky photos taped from floor to ceiling.
“Hold the damn Polaroid still,” she grumbles, after she lathers and shears her head bald for the 3,464th time.
Mikki Aronoff writes tiny stories in New Mexico. Her writing has received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nomination.
