Yellowing Newspaper

            “Yellowing newspaper.”

            “What?” I looked up from the crossword in my lap that was crinkled ever so slightly from my frustration"what is a four letter word for fleeting?"and up at my little sister. Her eyes, so gigantic and blue, never failed to shock me; as if just the sheer fact that they were big meant they could take in so much more. Despite the fact that she was four years younger than me, I always felt like she knew so much more than I did--that somehow, she was too wise for me to fully understand.

            “It’s yellowing newspaper,” she said, blinking with those enormous eyes; those miniature tide pools. “Today, my teacher asked what the single saddest thing we could think of is. And when she got to me, I had nothing. I told her that the saddest thing is seeing a dead dog on the side of the road, but I don’t even know why I said that. That’s not the saddest thing. It doesn’t even make the list.”

            I looked at my sister with the same bewilderment I always did. I sat silent, crossword forgotten in my hand, and waited for her to go on; for her to catch me up. But she didn’t. “Yellowing newspaper?” I prompted, frowning.

            “Yes,” she said, her voice dropping several decibels lower. “It’s living proof of time passing. People say time isn’t concrete; that it doesn’t exist except inside of our minds. But yellowing newspaper is proof that time does exist; that today’s news will be faded in a month; that a good day will soon be just a blurry vision in the backs of our minds. Flowers, people; they grow. You can see time passing; changing them. But newspaper fades away, shrinks. And the thought that the words of today will be yellowed paper in a month, it’s so sad.” She stopped. She turned back to the TV and turned up the volume as if that was all she had to say. I glanced back down at my crossword. A four letter word for fleeting…

            Time. 

Reviews

[ChristianM]

An interesting look at time.
Some of your quotation marks in the beginning though threw me off, I think you placed them incorrectly.
Not a bad micro story though.

[Jooolie]

Another brilliant story :) It's a challenge to take something so short and give it such a big message, but you've managed to do that. Great job again!