It was Christmas morning inside a\nspacious Tigard home at the end of a generic cul-de-sac named after a\ngenocidal Italian mariner. Danielle and her three generic children,\nboy 14, girl 11, boy 8, lounged in the rec room as a superhero movie\nplayed on television. Everyone fiddled on their phones or tablets or\nwatches, frequently two or three at the same time, if such a thing\nwas possible, which it is. Look all around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A fake tree stood in the corner and\nstrewn around its base was the shredded shiny papers that once\nwrapped thousands of dollars worth of new gadgets that the kids\nwordlessly fiddled on while simultaneously dumbing down their souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Danielle reached for a mug of cheap\nrose she’d just poured from a big box. Yes, it was morning, but\ndunking Costco cinnamon rolls in rose was simply divine. And it was\nChristmas after all. Bacon in the rose was next. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The kids’ loot was courtesy of their\naffluent parents, who were amicably divorced and parented in the\nmodern style, meaning sheer indulgence. Danielle was a mortgage\nprocessor in Beaverton and her ex leased commercial real estate in\nbuildings constructed upon dead wetlands throughout Washington\nCounty. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of the new gadgets replaced the\nsame old gadgets from the previous year. The kids had to have the\nbest. It was all they talked about with their mom, that is when they\neven talked. They usually just ignored her, unless they wanted fast\nfood delivered. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THUD!<\/em> Something had smacked into\nthe sliding glass door that opened up to a back yard that had gone to\nseed. Despite the thud, the kids never looked up from their gadgets. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Danielle got up from the couch and\ncarried her wine over to the door. She saw a robin splayed on the\nmoss-covered patio, writhing, then not writhing. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n THUD! <\/em>Another robin walloped\ninto the glass and hit the patio. It was twitching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Danielle shook and gasped, but didn’t\ndrop the wine. She slugged the rose, set down the mug, and tried to\nopen the door. It wouldn’t budge. She kept trying. Nothing. She\ndidn’t realize all the debris stuck under the runners made door\nmovement impossible. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one had opened the door in years. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was Christmas morning inside a spacious Tigard home at the end of a generic cul-de-sac named after a genocidal Italian mariner. Danielle and her three generic children, boy 14, girl 11, boy 8, lounged in the rec room as a superhero movie played on television. Everyone fiddled on their phones or tablets or watches, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5777,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5774\/revisions\/5777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}