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A Flash Fiction Story

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I woke with a start, someone was banging on my bedroom door, “UP LAZYBONES! It is your first day of high school!” I heard my dad yell. I was confused as hell. Was I dreaming? My dad had died ten years previous and I hadn’t been in high school for twenty, let alone just starting high school. I felt a ripple of energy and after a shudder looked down at the book that had fallen off my chest when I had sat up. Falling asleep with a book was a habit since I had learned to read, except it wasn’t the book on cardiovascular surgical advancements that I had remembered falling asleep with. It was a copy of The Odyssey, I hadn’t read that book since I was fourteen… I jumped up and looked into the mirror, “holy fuck,” I was fourteen again.

There was a ripple of energy again and a message appeared.

‘Here is your redo, don’t abuse it. ~Fate’

I dressed mechanically, I was fourteen and not the award-winning surgeon of my future. I sat down at the breakfast table in a daze, hash browns with cheese sat in front of me, something I hadn’t ate since my father died. I looked up and just watched him.

My dad, he was smiling as he flipped pancakes from the pain a very amateurish flourish, they always fell at a weird angle. I looked at the grey in his hair, the blisters and calluses on his hands, all from working three jobs to save and provide for me. The reason why I had gotten a part time job and pushed myself. I went into heart surgery to save people like my dad; until I lost sight of it all and give into greed. I blinked when he spoke.

“A reorder of hash browns?” He was smiling and held the pan out to give me some more, I looked down to notice I had finished them. I nodded, as I was realizing more than a few things. I would have to fight the hierarchy of high school again, work myself up to the top of the pyramid, wear the jersey of a star athlete, put a cowboy hat and jeans on, instead of the suit and tie I had worn for the last decade in my memories. I realized I was back in the middle of cowboy country and not Manhattan. But for this chance to save my dad? To become the version of myself I had wanted to see in the mirror before I lost everything to the green of greed? It would be worth it to fight for it again. For I wasn’t going to waste this chance at unexpected redemption.