Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Wait

He sat on the edge of the cigarette-pocked sofa, small pale fingers wrapped around the heavy, black weight of the gun. The gun he wasn't to touch until his father said it was OK. Until he was ten. No one knew that he could open the safe and had held the gun a thousand times.

From the back of the house, he could hear his mother on the phone. She was talking too loud. Too fast. Then too slow.

The house was nothing. It was vacant and generic. No pictures on the wall. Smell of old smoke and sadness.

His skin was peppered with gooseflesh and his mind was racing. A track race. Around and around the same circle. Hammering on one thought. His father would be home from work soon. He would come in and drop his tools and he would yell for his dinner and a drink. And then it would happen. He would never hit his mother again.

6 comments:

  1. Well Dan, you probably know I'm going to say this is heartbreaking in its real, plaintive voice...but I'll say it anyway.

    'A track race' is the perfect way to describe those spinning thoughts. Even though you don't mention it, one can almost hear the gunshot at the end of the last sentence.

    Thanks for this. Wow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jo. In the haze before sleep last night, I saw this little boy. Somehow, today, I remembered.

      Delete
  2. Dan you always write with the sheer physicality of the greats. You always conjure the scene.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, my friend. You know that means a lot to me coming from a yachting buddy.

      Delete
  3. So tragic and so understandable. As Jo said, you can hear the gunshot. It hangs there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Yvonne...that's why I love short fiction. So much left unsaid that doesn't need to be said.

      Delete

Please leave comments. Good, bad or ugly. Especially ugly.