Forgotten by Steve Bridger - 206 Word Stories - Bag of Bones Press

 

Forgotten

by Steve Bridger

 

 

‘How long can you sit still?’ Daddy asks.

I beam with pride, desperate to impress. 

‘Imagine you’re posing for a picture,’ he says gently. ‘Still as a statue.’ He wraps an itchy woollen scarf around my neck. The wind blows low and cold through tiny gaps in the windows of the little wooden shack. I’ve never seen so much snow outside.

‘Like when Mummy had her scan. No matter how much your nose might itch or you want to scratch or cough. Do not move.’ Taking the axe, he kisses me on the forehead and disappears into the howling dead of night.

In my head, I play musical statues. Twirling and dancing. When the imaginary music stops, my muscles clamp shut. My breath is held. I sit motionless, even my eyes unmoving. I watch the snow continue to fall in silence. 

Daddy said he’s coming back.

 

Everything seemed easier when I was little. A single chocolate bar could feed me for days. The frayed magazines would entertain me for hours. I’ve lost track of time.

Waiting for first light, I say a prayer as I did for Mummy. I stow a sharp blade into my boot and open the rickety door.

Daddy isn’t coming back.

 

N

 

Steve Bridger is a sleepy animator and illustrator originating from Essex in the UK. He’s entered into several amateur writing competitions, coming second in a short story competition and shortlisted in another. While by day his main focus is design and illustration; by night, he enjoys creative writing and attempting flash fiction. He currently lives in Cheltenham with some house plants.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mom Says it's My Turn in the Body - Zoe Leonard - THIS IS TOO TENSE

  Mom Says it’s My Turn in the Body Zoe Leonard   From the inside of your head you ask, “Can I play now?” “I just started playing,” your sister says in your voice. She is deconstructing your Lego starship and sticking the pieces back together at odd angles. You try to keep a mental tab on the bricks so you can fix it when you have control of your body again, but she’s tossing pieces all over the carpet. The Legos halo around your crisscrossed legs like shrapnel. Mom says she can play with any of your toys, and you can’t complain because she’s your sister, and you were so sad when she was dead, so now you should be happy.  Before Milly came back, Mom spent all day laying on the couch, looking at her phone. She wouldn’t talk, and most nights, you’d have to microwave EasyMac for dinner. Mom didn’t eat very much.  One night your stomach was growling, so you snuck out of your room and saw Mom in the dark at the dining table. She was reading something on her laptop and hold
Read more

THE STAIRWAY OF TARTARUS by Miguel Ángel López - 206 Word Stories - Bag of Bones Press

  The Stairway of Tartarus by Miguel Ángel López     For my many conspiracies against the Gods I was condemned to the Stairway of Tartarus. I was told that if I reached the top then I would be free, so I began my ascent. The steps were lost in the horizon, where more like me were ascending, but I did not lose heart and continued my advance. One day I came across another convict who walked the stairs in the opposite direction but moved perpendicular to me, contradicting the laws of elementary physics. I asked him why he was descending and he replied that it was me who was doing that. I came across more captives making the opposite journey, until one day I found a guardian of Tartarus, suspended in the air in a diagonal position. I asked him why he was floating crookedly and he replied to me: “Crooked? It is you who is advancing at an angle on this staircase that is supported horizontally.” And then I understood my eternal punishment, since the Stairway of Tartarus neithe
Read more