Umber (68)

“Well, Marla, I’ve changed a bit since we last conversed,” Oleander said in a creaking voice.  “But you look just the same.”  She frowned as she puzzled over the fact that I had been a good forty years older than her when we first met, but now she was at least twenty years my senior.

“Funny,” she continued, “I’ve been thinking about those days, so very long ago they were, yet sometimes I still feel like that little girl who liked to play with paper dolls.  I stopped playing with them, you know, because I unintentionally kept making unfortunate things happen.  I believe I made a mess of a lot of things.   My poor mother… I often lie awake at night, wondering if I dare to try to fix things, to make things right, but I’ve been too afraid of muddling things up even worse.  I’d hate to alter the future in a bad way.  What if I made everybody disappear?”