"Ten Steps for Fixing Your Sorry Little Lives" by Timothy Boudreau

1. Walk outside, smell the fresh grass, feel the breeze, soak in the rays of the morning sun. Embrace the wonder of the world’s possibilities but remember some of them can kill you.
   

2. It’s fucking cold for June, don’t forget your hoodie.
   

3. All you can smell is grass because your mom mowed last night. Your MOM. She’s sixty-seven, she has arthritis in her knees, but you couldn’t be bothered to help her. You watched her limping past your window while you scrolled through your phone. Jfc the pain was written all over her face.
   

4. Walk around the yard, get a little exercise. Your mom left a couple of long patches around the rhododendron. She didn’t even weed whack, that’s another fucking chore you’ll have to deal with. Sic transit gloria mundi. Bear in mind she’s still supporting you though you’re almost forty.
   

5. The breeze makes you horny. You imagine a muscular fit thing with hard nipples in a tank top and track shorts. Amor vincit omnia. Dream on, it’s not gonna happen. Seriously, forget a boyfriend or girlfriend, you’ve barely had a friend.  

6. Just because you’re smarter than everyone doesn’t mean you have to be a prick to them. Who cares if they don’t know who Dante is, or don’t remember any Latin from tenth grade? You do, and how far has it taken you? You stubbly rotten-breathed weirdo. Try to be civil with people, it’ll help. When you’re at work at Shop Rite on Monday, volunteer for extra duties, maybe you’ll get a promotion.
   

7. Not everyone’s got Ralph Waldo Emerson in hardcover, the version you swiped senior year in Mrs. Gibson’s class. They never laminated their college essays and they sure as hell don’t want to read yours.
   

8. Your mom wasn’t always old and silly. You’ve seen her high school pictures: angular cheeks, bouncy bouffant, sly smile, like she had a crush on the photographer but was afraid he might seduce her. Picture that sixteen-year-old kid, it wasn’t all sock hops and Annette Funicello. Remember a teacher told her she had real talent, and she ought to pursue it. Audere est faucere. Her life’s ambition wasn’t to be a mom to someone like you. Maybe she thought she could be someone special.
   

9. Think of something nice to say when she gets back from grocery shopping. “Thanks Mom, I really appreciate it,” something like that. You’ll never give her everything she needs emotionally, at least do the small stuff.

When she says, “I’m disappointed in you,” maybe she’s saying, “I truly believe you could do better”; when she says, “You can’t be stressed, you don’t have any responsibilities,” maybe she’s saying, “You could try a little harder, it’s not too late.” When there aren’t any words, just the long stale sigh, maybe she’s saying, “It’s not easy for me either, David. I’m tired, too.” Try to think of that the next time she looks at you like she wants to cry, with her crooked fingers and droopy gray eyes, a blade of grass on her cheek.

Timothy Boudreau lives and works in northern New Hampshire. His collection Saturday Night and other Short Stories is available through Hobblebush Books; his recent work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and a Pushcart Prize. He is a fiction editor at The Loveliest Review. Find him on Twitter at @tcboudreau or at timothyboudreau.com