Kathryn Silver-Hajo
Kimo
Our son took that little black and white panda everywhere—daycare, the park, to bed, chewed his fuzzy ears, gave him bear hugs, until the day we rushed him through lashing wind and rain into the classroom with its too-bright lights and primary-colored blocks and he realized Kimo was missing, twisted starfish hands toward the door, wailing Go back, go back, but we said we had to get to work, we’d find him later, he must have fallen as we ran but it was too stormy to search now and probably Kimo was back home or on the driveway, but our stomachs clenched when he looked at us like he already knew and must’ve felt the loss like a kind of death, a grief only Kimo’s velvety fur and sad, angled eyes could soothe.
For days we offered feeble attempts to console: He’s on an adventure! Maybe another boy found him and took him home. But at night we’d hear him whispering, whimpering, no doubt wondering where Kimo was, if he really was safe and loved or lost—scared and lonely, maybe run over by a car or teased and thrown around by big middle school kids.
Then five years and five thousand miles away, a graying Kimo turned up in the back window of his perplexed grandmother’s car and we had one of those omigod moments, remembering the bag of toys we’d given her to take home for charity. Kimo must’ve slipped in and hitched a long, globe-trotting ride, finally ready to come home, where nothing was the same—new house, new neighborhood, our son a big kid who didn’t play with toys any more.
And now, when we presented Kimo, a long-overdue offering, would he say, that dumb thing was never mine, return to his video game with a shrug? Or would he pause, taken back to nights alone in his room with the stars and the moon glowing on the ceiling when Kimo was the one thing he knew he’d always have to hold on to until morning finally came?
Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears, or is forthcoming, in Atticus Review, Centaur Lit, CRAFT, Does it Have Pockets, Emerge Literary, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Milk Candy Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ruby Literary, and others. Her stories were selected for the 2023 and 2024 Wigleaf Top 50 Longlists and nominated for Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Food Writing. Kathryn’s books include award-winning flash collection, Wolfsong, and YA novel, Roots of The Banyan Tree. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and curly-tailed pup, Kaya. kathrynsilverhajo.com; facebook.com/kathryn.silverhajo; twitter.com/KSilverHajo; @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social; instagram.com/kathrynsilverhajo
