[ WP ] Write a story about your biggest fear/nightmare . Make me afraid of it , too .

Ever dissolve starch into warm water. It feels like hardened cement in the bottom of the bowl, but as you apply pressure, the starch just kind of fades from your grip, dissolving completely and magically into the liquid. I was always impressed by this transition. It was n't magic or even complicated science. It was just really fine powder that with a little coaxing dissolved away as it was meant to. 
 
 I'm terrified of this happening to me in life. When I was younger, I had lots siblings. Ten siblings to be exact. We were close. I was always bragging about my brothers and sisters to the other kids at school. Dale was good at this. Allen was good at this. Robbie worked for this company and positioned their satelites. Ronnie worked on navy helicopters. Justine could draw so amazingly. Donnette could draw even better. 
 
 It was like this for all of them. My father was an amazingly creative man and well respected among the other farmers and business owners in the region. My mother, she was a social butterfly throwing Tupperware parties all over southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. 
 
 I never thought of myself as having a talent. As I grew up, my little brother bulked up and ended up looking like a Greecian God. All rippling muscle, farm boy shyness, and curly blond hair. He was a hit with the ladies. My little sister... well... Anyway, my siblings all had these fantastic skills, but I grew up with nothing. 
 
 I was n't brave like them. I was n't skilled like them. I was n't attractive. I was awkward. They never told their friends about me. In school, my friends numbered twenty or thirty. When I was younger, I had people. I had family. I had friends. I was not alone. My life was a clump of starch in the bottom of a bowl of water. 
 
 I was so happy then. 
 
 Life is a giant hand in a bowl of water, and it squeezed my starch. Mom died when I was nine. Dad when I was fourteen. Between those two ages, I was shuffled from foster home to foster home. Family drifted away. Some died. The starch was slowly dissolving. Willie died in a car wreck. Shelly moved away. Ronnie refused to visit. Robbie woud n't return because he accidently killed Kirby. Uncle Jean died of cancer. Aunt Vi died of old age. Uncle Nolan died of cancer. Aunt Fern died of a broken heart. Donnette disappeared. Justine was embarrassed by her family and stayed away. Dale fell on hard times. Allen moved away and nearly worked himself to death. The farm house burned down. The land was split and sold off. 
 
 I came back later. Ricky, with the freckles, died of cancer at twenty-one. Dallas got drunk after graduation and missed the bridge. Zeke got buried on the job under a mountain of flaming charcoal. Jeffery fell to drugs. LaWanda moved off and forgot her friends. Thirty percent of my friends became uber religious and looked down their nose at me. Six wound up in prison. Debbie won Miss Missouri and was now to good for us. David got into modeling, decided we were pathetic and moved to New York. 
 
 The mound in the bottom of the bowl shrinks every year. Each friend, family member, and acquaintance is a grain of sand in a very large hour glass. There are only a few grains left. Every day, another grain drops, and every day, another person I care for vanishes from my life. I'm getting old. My body is slowing down. The luster in my eyes grows fainter, like the eyes of a tiger locked in a cage. I'm beaten. I'm destroyed. Very soon, I'll be all alone. No one will remember me. No one will remember my name, my smile, my humor, my face, my grace, and the little things that my mother thought endearing. 
 
 I do n't want to fade away. I do n't. I want to stain the bowl. I want something of me to remain. I do n't want to be forgotten. Please do n't let me be forgotten. It's why I write all the time. It's why I write stories and respond to four and five prompts a day. I do n't want to disappear. 
 
 Do n't let me disappear.
