“Can I go somewhere with fairies?” I ask.
“Sorry,” the gnome says. “They don’t like your kind. The only alternate world available to you is a version of your own where no one invents the telephone, radio, movies, or computers.”
“What do they do?” I ask.
He laughs. “Everything else.”
Susmita Ramani is a writer and lawyer who has a novella coming out from Running Wild Press in 2026. She has two teenage daughters and performs improv with a group. She lives in Palo Alto, California.
He said, “Don’t jump!”
She pulled him, too. Into life.
By her side, he trekked high mountains, hot air ballooned into clouds, rode horses, surfed dangerously large waves, and saw salmon-gold sunrises and sunsets from every continent.
When she died, he lived on. (Twice as hard, for both their sakes.)
Susmita Ramani lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children. She’s a lifelong writer, and passionate about mindfulness and the environment. She’s published essays for various blogs, and is working on a collection of short stories. Follow Susmita on Twitter at susmitabythebay.