by Cecilia Kennedy

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When the kya, kya, he, he, shoosh, shoosh labor-breathing ended, a tiny thing entered this world on a string. Nurses had to pull her down from the ceiling. I never even got a chance to hold her.

“It’s rare,” the doctors said, “but it happens,” and they rattled off something about the displacement of oxygen in a pair of human lungs and chromosomes and genes and splices of things, but in the end, the outcome was clear: my child would float through the world.

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On the beach, I’d seen a clump of seaweed, all pink and bubbly, and I’d stuffed it inside my pocket to bring it home. I set it on the windowsill and watched it change colors. Sometimes, I’d break off a piece and eat it, hoping it would grow inside me, hoping it would shift, take on a new form. I’d grown so bored of the same things, the same objects surrounding me in my house, all the things I’d been collecting. I wanted something new.

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I’d set out the toys on the carpet, and my baby would come down from the ceiling and choose her favorites. She’d hover over my shoulder as I read her books, and kicked and screamed when I put her in the car seat, but laughing every time I unbuckled her and would nearly lose her to the sky whenever we reached the store. Of course, I got looks and questions, but I was too busy trying to keep her from burning her fingers on the overhead lights. People said she resembled a clump of seaweed, and I took it as a compliment. Maybe I had something to do with that.

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After I’d eaten the seaweed, I felt lighter. Drops of water condensed on the tips of the remaining parts of the plant near the windowsill. I’d swear those drops would lift slightly. I had cut off another piece to eat, and then I planted the rest outside, where it grew. Parts of it would sway in the wind and disappear, fast into the clouds.

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When she grew a bit, I raised the ceiling on the house and added more windows, but her wispy strands fell out in ribbons and strings, and she started to hover in the corner, near the window and look out, to where I’d planted the seaweed.

I called the doctors, but they didn’t know of anyone with this condition who lived this long.

“You mean they die early?” I asked.

“As toddlers, yes.”

“And no one told me before?”

“No one knew at the time. We know a little more now, but not much.”

“What do I do?”

Silence, a sigh, a tight breath from over the phone on the other side.

“Kya, kya, he, he, shoosh, shoosh,” I said to my child, as I opened the window to let her out. The last strand of her fronds wrapped around my fingers, the only part of her I ever got to really hold. She floated toward the plant. In one exchange of a molecule for another, she took it with her to the sky and replaced it with just the things held down by gravity. Oh, but for one fleeting moment, everything was new, and I’d had everything.

© Cecilia Kennedy

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Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) is a writer who taught English and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family. Since 2017, she has published stories in international literary magazines and anthologies. Her work has appeared in Hearth & Coffin Literary Magazine,Maudlin House, Tiny Molecules, Rejection Letters, Meadowlark Review, Vast Chasm Literary Magazine, Kandisha Press, Ghost Orchid Press, and others. She currently works full time as a copywriter and does freelance work as a proofreader for Flash Fiction Magazine and as a concept editor for Running Wild Press, LLC. 

You can follow her on Twitter @ckennedyhola.

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