Mud People

Assistant Editor Blessing Christopher: It’s not always easy to pinpoint the exact moment a transition occurred, so in today’s miCRo—a story where the narrator’s juvenile concerns are abruptly interrupted to honor a long-standing tradition—we are urged to revisit the family events we uphold and how they can crystallize into an extensive sense of loss.

Listen to Leila Karpuzi read the piece:

Mud People

You don’t remember, but you raised me to his bedside. My important play was interrupted. I was in the middle of resuscitating a small frog, a lonely fellow. I had come across him in the nick of time—I could save him, surely. I just needed to find my frog-size stethoscope. 

I was six and thought vastly about my inner world. 

The room I had been beckoned to held people whose faces were like my boots’ prints in the mud, full of ridges with a distinct quality of repression. 

I looked at his gray beard, which flowed down like a river, filled with wisdom in addition to aged ruggedness. Perhaps this river created the muddiness around me. I did not have time to ponder the matter. I did not want to kiss his cold cheek, but the teary eyes around the room urged it. So I did, painfully aware of the sickening feeling of betrayal. 

You put me down quickly afterward. My descent had the soundtrack of quieted sobs. I scuttled away, focusing on the sounds of my tiny bare feet slapping against the oak floorboards instead. I don’t remember where they ran to, just that they haven’t stopped. 

Two things passed that day.