by Ann Yuan
Dad is a roofer. At the age of fifty-three, he’s already had a hip replacement. Two weeks after the surgery, he goes back to work, climbing up the ladder and jumping off the eaves. Mom yells at him, Larry, if you burst your new hip, there’ll be no bar night for you ever again! Dad says, Molly, can’t you see I’m Ironman?
Everyone notices the change. He’s stronger, faster, and even looks five years younger. The X-ray shows the titanium has permeated all his bones, creating a half-bone, half-metal alloy. Doctors can’t explain it. Mom and Dad look at each other with question marks all over their faces. We fumble through our biology books and assure them this is pure evidence of evolution, a process usually spanning tens of thousands of years now unfolding within weeks.
A miracle. Dad smiles.
Mom narrows her eyes. She has never been a believer in science. In her mind, people have the same chance of adapting to the environment as a rooster has of learning to lay eggs. She herself has never gotten used to the sweltering summer in this place since she relocated to marry Dad. The weather seems unbearable this year. She huffs and puffs while carrying laundry upstairs. Her throat whistles as if there is a leaking balloon in her chest. We often wake in the middle of the night to her tossing and coughing. Within six months, she can’t get out of bed.
This time, the problem is still evolution.
You see, the doctor explains, evolution doesn’t always move in the optimal direction for certain individuals. This has been true ever since we were grains of particles. Mom and Dad look at us. We double-check the book and nod—we have to agree with the science.
Evolution, my ass, Dad says.
At night, Dad carries Mom to the top of an abandoned water tower. He says the breeze up there will open Mom’s lungs. No one believes him. The way we see it, climbing is Dad’s expertise, and climbing is the only way he can help. He asks us if we can stay at home, and we say we’re cool.
With a set of steel bones, Dad scoops up Mom like she is some kind of vanilla ice cream doused with chocolate fudge that would soon melt in the hot July sun. A pink blush rises to Mom’s chalky cheeks.
We tail them once we are sure Dad can’t see us. We hide behind bushes and watch in awe as Dad stomps up the rungs like a Marvel hero.
Halfway up, Mom starts laboring for breath. Dad stumbles and almost misses a step.
What’s the matter, Ironman? Mom asks.
Just need a lube-up, Dad says. That’s all.
And then they are up on the roof, huddling together under a dark blue sky and facing the unfathomable swirl of the Milky Way, as if they are ready to leap from the rooftop and plunge into the great spinning of gas and dust; or, as if they are in another time, another universe, where they can evolve their own way of living.
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Writing from Long Island, NY, Ann Yuan was a finalist for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2025. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Your Impossible Voice, Oyster River Pages, Gone Lawn, Moonpark Review, Eclectica Magazine, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. You can find more at annyuanwriting.com.
Cypress Editorial 