Calculations
—
Claudia Monpere
THE GREAT THING ABOUT THE SUFFERING HIERARCHY is you can play it anytime, although my blood sister, Alyce, and I decided that every six weeks is optimum. You don’t have to be good at math or philosophy. But you have to be smart. Which I am. Very. Alyce, too. Our AP calculus teacher doesn’t even bother to check our homework.
The sky is an ironic November blue when we arrive at the nursery, a short walk from school. The maples are beautiful fractals, their predictable branching a response to chaos, which is what life really is. Berries today, we decide, with a coin flip letting me go first. I pick a dark violet berry from the Profusion Beauty berry bush.
“Daniel Chin’s mother had a hemorrhagic stroke. She’ll never be normal again.” I roll the berry down the paving.
Alyce plucks a red chokeberry. “Rhonda Sterling made herself throw up again in the second floor bathroom.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” I say.
Alyce shrugs. “Just wait,” she says and rolls her berry, trying unsuccessfully to hit or overtake mine. She picks up both berries and hands them to me. I place them gently in a small container, ignoring a second text from my mother telling me to Uber to the hospital. Still, my heart thuds, the guilt graph flaming in my head. I locate intercepts and asymptotes, focus on the lines.
Next: a Rose Glow Barberry. Bell shaped, so it won’t roll, but the leaves, marbled bronze and rose, draw me to the plant, so I pluck the berry. “Paula Grigoryan sucked off three athletes at a party last week. It’s all over social and the name calling is way worse than slut.” A flash of something—sorrow? compassion?—across Alyce’s face which irritates me. The point is that we remove ourselves. We control our emotions. My berry does not roll far. Alyce wanders around, returning with a holly berry. Let’s see what kind of suffering she can serve up.
“Matt Zanders’ dad gambled away their money and their house is being foreclosed on and he and his mom and sisters have to move into his aunt’s double wide. The aunt’s a bitch and she has diabetes and mostly sits around and eats. She says Matt has to go back to being a beef-loving American if he’s going to move in.” Alyce’s eyes flash. Neither of us likes Matt. But still. Her berry wins.
More berries, more stories as we play a few more rounds. We have a lively debate as we construct our suffering hierarchy. So much to consider: the summation of infinitesimal differences (the nature and intensity of the suffering), instantaneous rate of change (how much the suffering increases or decreases as certain events change), and finite limits vs. infinity (the likely length and consequences). When we’re finally done, it’s time for tree wandering. We both know where we’ll end up.
We stop by the deciduous trees with the best names: the Bloodgood Japanese Maple, the Jade Butterflies Ginkgo, the Golden Spirit Smoke tree, the Autumn Moon. Another text from my mother.
“It’s your mother, isn’t it?” Alyce says. She knows everything. “The hospital, right? You should get going.” Alyce doesn’t have a mother anymore, so she’s protective of mine. Her mother left after everything. There was a postcard after the first anniversary. Nothing since.
“Come on,” I tell Alyce. “I’m not going till we’re done.”
We walk briskly, stopping at our tree: The Sister Ghost Japanese maple. Delicate yellow green lace leaves with pink highlights. Prominent red veins. Next month will be the two-year anniversary of Alyce’s sister’s death. She overdosed on fentanyl. My sister is in and out of the hospital with stage 4 lung cancer. What are the odds? Alyce and I say. But we’ll never calculate them. Instead, we’ll dig a hole in the ground with sticks. We’ll place each berry in, tenderly.
We’ll fill the hole with dirt, put some flowers on top and let ourselves feel. Then we’ll return to coolly observing our peers, calculating with the sharp blue blade of numbers and graphs. •
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Claudia Monpere’s flash appears in Split Lip, SmokeLong Quarterly, Craft, Flash Frog, Trampset, The Forge, and elsewhere. She won the 2024 New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review, the 2024 Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine, and the 2023 Smokelong Workshop Prize. She has stories in Best Small Fictions 2024 and 2025 and Best Microfiction 2025 and 2026. Her flash collection, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press.
Website | Instagram | Bluesky
The sky is an ironic November blue when we arrive at the nursery, a short walk from school. The maples are beautiful fractals, their predictable branching a response to chaos, which is what life really is. Berries today, we decide, with a coin flip letting me go first. I pick a dark violet berry from the Profusion Beauty berry bush.
“Daniel Chin’s mother had a hemorrhagic stroke. She’ll never be normal again.” I roll the berry down the paving.
Alyce plucks a red chokeberry. “Rhonda Sterling made herself throw up again in the second floor bathroom.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” I say.
Alyce shrugs. “Just wait,” she says and rolls her berry, trying unsuccessfully to hit or overtake mine. She picks up both berries and hands them to me. I place them gently in a small container, ignoring a second text from my mother telling me to Uber to the hospital. Still, my heart thuds, the guilt graph flaming in my head. I locate intercepts and asymptotes, focus on the lines.
Next: a Rose Glow Barberry. Bell shaped, so it won’t roll, but the leaves, marbled bronze and rose, draw me to the plant, so I pluck the berry. “Paula Grigoryan sucked off three athletes at a party last week. It’s all over social and the name calling is way worse than slut.” A flash of something—sorrow? compassion?—across Alyce’s face which irritates me. The point is that we remove ourselves. We control our emotions. My berry does not roll far. Alyce wanders around, returning with a holly berry. Let’s see what kind of suffering she can serve up.
“Matt Zanders’ dad gambled away their money and their house is being foreclosed on and he and his mom and sisters have to move into his aunt’s double wide. The aunt’s a bitch and she has diabetes and mostly sits around and eats. She says Matt has to go back to being a beef-loving American if he’s going to move in.” Alyce’s eyes flash. Neither of us likes Matt. But still. Her berry wins.
More berries, more stories as we play a few more rounds. We have a lively debate as we construct our suffering hierarchy. So much to consider: the summation of infinitesimal differences (the nature and intensity of the suffering), instantaneous rate of change (how much the suffering increases or decreases as certain events change), and finite limits vs. infinity (the likely length and consequences). When we’re finally done, it’s time for tree wandering. We both know where we’ll end up.
We stop by the deciduous trees with the best names: the Bloodgood Japanese Maple, the Jade Butterflies Ginkgo, the Golden Spirit Smoke tree, the Autumn Moon. Another text from my mother.
“It’s your mother, isn’t it?” Alyce says. She knows everything. “The hospital, right? You should get going.” Alyce doesn’t have a mother anymore, so she’s protective of mine. Her mother left after everything. There was a postcard after the first anniversary. Nothing since.
“Come on,” I tell Alyce. “I’m not going till we’re done.”
We walk briskly, stopping at our tree: The Sister Ghost Japanese maple. Delicate yellow green lace leaves with pink highlights. Prominent red veins. Next month will be the two-year anniversary of Alyce’s sister’s death. She overdosed on fentanyl. My sister is in and out of the hospital with stage 4 lung cancer. What are the odds? Alyce and I say. But we’ll never calculate them. Instead, we’ll dig a hole in the ground with sticks. We’ll place each berry in, tenderly.
We’ll fill the hole with dirt, put some flowers on top and let ourselves feel. Then we’ll return to coolly observing our peers, calculating with the sharp blue blade of numbers and graphs. •
Claudia Monpere’s flash appears in Split Lip, SmokeLong Quarterly, Craft, Flash Frog, Trampset, The Forge, and elsewhere. She won the 2024 New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review, the 2024 Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine, and the 2023 Smokelong Workshop Prize. She has stories in Best Small Fictions 2024 and 2025 and Best Microfiction 2025 and 2026. Her flash collection, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press.
Website | Instagram | Bluesky