Slipping into Madness

B1: Curiouser and Curiouser

Stranger things have happened, so why not share the most curious thing that's ever happened to you. Alice would definitely empathize. (<500 words)

I don't know much about strangeness. I've led a pretty uneventful life, although I have moved around a lot. I was a friendly child. Mama tells a story about when I was just a baby, I met a little boy. He had a blanket that he didn't give to anyone, even his mama when she wanted to wash it. But when we met, he gave it to me, as though he'd been holding it for me and it was mine by right. I suppose that makes sense, though, that we would have had a connection from before we were born.

I come from a long line of midwives and faith healers. In fact, Grandpa could talk warts off. Dad remembers him taking a hand in his to warm it while rebuking the wart, and eventually it would go. Dad doesn't have the gift.

Grandma used to know when her daughters were having babies before she was told. This got to be such a problem for her that she trained herself out of it about the time when my Aunt Sandy had her fourth. Later in life, Grandma took a correspondence course to certify as a faith healer. It was after she'd retired from previous careers as a high school music teacher, a doctor of music, and a real estate agent.

The day my grandpa died, I knew before they called us that he had gone. It was a Friday the Thirteenth. I felt my other grandparents pass as well, although I was only able to make one funeral because we lived far away. Five months ago, I had a sudden pain in my foot. About a week later, we heard from my brother that he had been in a wreck and broken that his pinkie toe bone in six places.

My uncle does homeopathic medicine. My sister is trained in permaculture. Every time I've moved into a new house (and I've lived in over 25 houses in periods of time ranging from 4 weeks to thirteen years), even though we've moved all over the states, we've always found someone we know in the new place, immediately. In the first place we moved after Dad finished school, he found on his first day of work, an old roommate of his was starting at the company, too.

But I've never seen anything really strange in my life. There are so many wonders all around that I expect the extraordinary. And I get it.

Every time.

Word count: 413