365 Days

A septuagenarian patriarch, weary of the incessant clang of familial discord, conjures a last-ditch covenant: twelve months of forced fraternity on a single patch of dust, the prize a fortune hefty enough to bend spines and silence tongues. The clan—cousins, half-siblings, and the stray in-law—descend like starved crows, each eyeing the other over picket fences that sprout overnight like spiteful mushrooms. Space evaporates; one household, refusing the squeeze, lashes its clapboard cottage to a circus balloon and ascends into the cobalt yonder, becoming a slow-moving thundercloud that rains chamber pots, corsets, and the occasional ukulele onto the mortals below. Below, truces are soldered with shared laundry lines and communal soup pots; above, every lost boot or stuffed parrot that tumbles from the sky becomes an omen, a slapstick prophecy. When the 365th dawn breaks, the old man, trembling with relief and arsenic-laced cake, begins to parcel out gold—only to be branded an imposter by every heir except the quiet granddaughter who once mended his spectacles. She alone recognizes the glint of genuine generosity; the rest, blinded by greed, chase the floating house across the horizon while she inherits the earth.