Two Flash Creative Non-Fiction Stories
Donna L Greenwood The War Dog When the lightning comes it is not in the sky, it is in her eyes. I see it flash and know that thunder will follow, and I know that there is only one thing that can help us – the War Dog. I pick up my baby sister and run upstairs; I hope my other sister, Karen, will be there already. Just before I reach the top of the stairs, I dare to look back. I see the back of mum’s head as she opens the front door. There are two police officers standing on our step. I see their headless uniforms held within the frame of the door. My heart is racing. What’s she done now? I was prepared for a neighbour or maybe Aunty Milly but not the police. Perhaps, this time, they will take her away. In the back bedroom where I sleep with my two sisters, there is the War Dog. It’s a large built-in wardrobe. If you go back far enough into its belly, you don’t hear the shouting. It’s called the War Dog because Karen couldn’t say wardrobe when we first discovered the sanctity of its walls. She is there when I open the doors. She’s shuffled to the back and has covered herself in old coats. ‘Here, take the baby,’ I whisper-scream and she emerges from the clothes to grab Lauren. I haul myself into the War Dog and shut the doors behind me. We sit in the dark, my sisters and I. We burrow beneath old jumpers and coats and hold hands. We stare at each other; our eyes are big and black. The voices are muffled but mum’s voice is unmistakable. It’s loud and shrieking. The other voice, the policeman’s voice, is quiet and reassuring. I can’t hear her words but I recognise the pitch. It is dangerously high. I look at Karen. She looks scared. After the shouting there will be tears and mum will be all soft and trembling, and whispering about the taxi drivers and about how nobody believes her. We believe her. We know the taxi drivers are trying to kill her. We run with her through town when the cars are chasing her. The front door shuts. I hear footsteps walk slowly up the stairs. I strain to hear more. Which way is she coming? I feel my sisters’ fingers wrap tightly around my hands. The bedroom door opens. I hear her heavy feet walk towards us. The handle of the wardrobe moves. I pray that a nice social worker will be standing there when the War Dog opens its jaws. “Oh girls, what are you doing in there again?” she says and my cheeks redden with the shame of the hatred I feel as she takes the baby from my hands. Marys The smell of over-cooked cabbage mingles with the steam rising from wet clothes drying on the maiden in front of the fire. Off white school blouses hang there, yellow muck is still visible around the collars – Mum has been washing them by hand ever since the machine broke. Navy blue sweaters and skirts are left unwashed on our bedroom floors. They will do for another week. I’m playing Marys with my sisters– a made up game where we pretend to be wives called Mary. The main point of the game is to sit on the stairs pretending to smoke pen lids and gossiping about ‘that Doreen’ and ‘him’. We hear him before he opens the door. The loud hiccup-burp of a drunken man is familiar to us. We scatter upstairs in unison - gazelles scenting danger. The door bangs open. I watch him through the stair rails. All I can see is the top of his head – bald but for a few ginger wisps. I watch the head float down the corridor and into the kitchen. Almost immediately the screaming starts. I am frozen. I don’t want to draw attention to myself by moving. “That bloody hurt, you swine,” Mum is saying. There’s nervous laughter in her voice. I let out my breath. I hear Dad murmuring something and Mum telling him to sit down, that tea will be ready soon. There’s a crash. A plate? Has Dad fallen? Is Mum alright? A door bangs open. Someone puts on the telly. It’s Bulls Eye. I go upstairs to my sisters. I want to play Marys. We sit at the table to have tea. Dad stays in the front room. He has his tea on his lap. My sister starts to say she doesn’t like the meat. She’s too young to know what this could lead to. My other two sisters stare in horror as she begins to cry. Mum’s there in a moment. My baby sister is whisked away. We eat the rest of our tea in silence. Like a ghoul, Mum appears by Dad’s side and catches his plate before it falls onto the carpet. He’s fallen asleep. We don’t clear up the mess from the table. We don’t wash the dishes. We don’t fold the dried blouses and place them in our rooms. We don’t help at all. We play Marys. We play Marys and it all begins to disappear; the dirty dishes, the ragged uniforms, the desperate woman upstairs trying not to claw off her own face. We smoke our pretend cigarettes and watch the imaginary plumes swirl around the man asleep on the sofa, until he too dissembles and all that is real is the game and my sisters and our make believe world of wives and women who know better. |
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About the Author:
Donna L Greenwood lives in Lancashire, England. She writes flash fiction, short stories and poetry and you can find examples of her work in STORGY magazine, The Airgonaut, EllipsisZine and others. She has recently won or been placed in several writing competitions including Horror Scribes ‘Trapped Flash’ and Reflex Fiction.
Donna L Greenwood lives in Lancashire, England. She writes flash fiction, short stories and poetry and you can find examples of her work in STORGY magazine, The Airgonaut, EllipsisZine and others. She has recently won or been placed in several writing competitions including Horror Scribes ‘Trapped Flash’ and Reflex Fiction.