I was twitchy, waiting impatiently. Once the mail carrier left, I rushed to yank out the envelope. I’d already seen it in mail preview: white, hand-written, no return address. I flipped it. Nothing on the back. It felt thicker than it should. I sucked in my lips. Bad news, surely. I was disabled and poor now, nothing was good. I stared. Two hundred dollar gift cards for groceries? I choked. And two hundred dollars?! A white paper wrapped it: my name and a smiley face. Nothing else. Tears streamed past my smiling lips. Maybe my luck was changing, after all?
April McCloud [she/her] is a 1% bionic human who worships her cat and hopes to be reincarnated as a red panda.