270

It was the folded pieces of washed tinfoil in her dead grandmother's kitchen pantry that put Samantha over the edge.  Picturing how her grandmother had used, rinsed and carefully put away the tinfoil for a future time she would never see caused Sam to burst into tears.  Even the word "tinfoil" was her grandmother's; her own mother teased her for using such an old-fashioned word for "aluminum foil".  Sunk to the floor holding the folded pieces, Sam cried and, in an oddly detached way, thought about why it made her so sad.  Missing her grandmother?  Certainly.  There were always loving words and compliments unsaid, questions unasked.  She cried for herself.  No, she thought, she cried for humans.  Humans who lived as if they would continue to live forever.  Humans who set aside for the future.  Humans who had plans in the calendar.  Humans who had saved candles because they were too nice to burn for any "regular" occasion and waited, unburned, perhaps forever.