Settle and Slake by Mikki Aronoff

In “Settle and Slake,” author Mikki Aronoff tackles anxieties radiating from our modern conceptions and images of “the slippery slope” of aging. In her author’s note, she confides that when given a writing prompt, her brain “runs out and feels its way into a story.” This sense of speed is palpable in her masterfully crafted descriptions and quick turns of phrase. They crash, collide, and slide into each other throughout the micro, creating a sense of movement. Rather than fading into its golden years, Aronoff’s communal voice thrashes against the frightening limitations of an aging body and a correspondingly shrinking and challenging world. Aronoff peppers her lament with pop culture references, exaggerations, and a layering of evocative images, creating a sense of spiral and crescendo. “Settle and Slake” posits a philosophy that refuses to get old because, as Aronoff explains, “humor, to me, means hope.” —CRAFT
We strive to slide and glide but list from side to side, bob up, bob down, settle for a sec or a minute. We shake our balding heads in minute arcs, lest we fall and fracture. We slake worries, thirst, we’d settle for a coke. We cock our heads, all the better to hear, cock finger-pistols at foreheads as we watch the news, cackle at the design of cocks, gobble chicken fingers—plucked if we’re lucky. We squint and lour at our powdered eggs, scrambled like brains. We applesauce, we gum. We whimper for dinner, scowl when we see it. We bank crackers and sugar while our darlings crack open our safes, plunder our savings. We watch orderlies shrink as nurses bark orders. We cower in corners, drop bibles on toes that bark our shoes, flirt with drivers and cooks, wonder where we’ve left rings, except in the tub. We can’t see our chin hairs, beg aides to yank them when we die. If. We play rummy with five, then four, then three, watch Golden Girls instead, try to stay awake while the sighted play Scrabble. “Scab” is only one letter away from “scar,” they smirk at us. Good health! we croak back to them and to all those in our wake as they wheel us off to the garden, to physical therapy, to urgent care, to the morgue, to our wakes, our skin glaucous. Like grapes under a loured sky.
MIKKI ARONOFF writes tiny stories and advocates for animals. Her work has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction. Mikki has stories in Best Microfiction 2024 and in Best Small Fictions 2024 and forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2025. She lives in New Mexico. She can be found on Facebook @mikki.aronoff.
Featured Image by Tijana Drndarski, courtesy of Unsplash.