Lunch Table Astronomy

Description

“Lunch Table Astronomy” is part of the prose collection Notes from the Inside: Teen Mental Health.

The cafeteria isn’t just loud, bright, and crowded. It’s a whole solar system with its own gravity, its own rules, and a thousand tiny ways to feel invisible. Every day, she maps the lunchroom like space: Jupiter for the loud and fearless, Venus for the shining and admired, Saturn for the dramatic and orbiting, Pluto for the ones who’ve learned to live on the edge. And then there’s her table, far enough away to breathe, close enough to still be in the system. A place she can survive. But on an ordinary day with a paper lunch bag, a sandwich, and a tray that feels heavier than it should, something impossible happens. The planets she’s been tracking in her head appear above her like a private sky, and for once, her loneliness has a shape she can name. When a new student asks to sit down, her carefully guarded moon of quiet is suddenly shared, and the universe shifts by a fraction.

Joanna Anderson’s short story collection, Notes from the Inside: Teen Mental Health, includes six short stories about teen mental health issues:
 “Attendance”
 “Bathroom Mirror”
 “Group Chat Ghost”
 “Lunch Table Astronomy”
 “Prescription Pick-Up”
 “The Sound of Small Things”

Titles in the collection are sold seperately. For descriptions see “Prose: Short Stories” in the Online Store.