Grandpa is singing again

in a loud vowely howl punctuated every so often by an “h” or an “n”. he doesn’t know anything about breakfast or last week or what my name is and where I came from but he knows some parts of those old songs. sometimes they make him cry. mostly, no one else pays attention to him unless he’s interrupting a conversation or a television program. I like to tease him sometimes, because he always liked to tease me in the beginning. I forget that now he gets so angry that his eyes fold up into his eyebrows until his entire forehead under his glasses is a single hard, stiff, line. once when that happened he called me an idiot, which made me cry because my mother was crying, even though I didn’t know what he meant. grandma bought the headphones after that, to help him cope when strangers were around. the doctors told her it might make things a little better but he then he peed into a laundry basket last week. grandma said he thought it was the toilet. everybody worries about grandpa and ignores him in equal parts. grandma put a little bell on her phone to tell her to take him to the bathroom and a big bell on the front door to tell her if he tries to leave the house. she tells us to leave him alone and puts his headphones in for him so he can hear the music.









Jessie Kramer writes flash and other snippets. She enjoys walking in the woods, hanging out with her daughter doing four-year-old things, and watching football.