She She She
Flash fiction (short-short story)
A pale and thin girl, Miriam, sat alone in her high school cafeteria. A breeze of rustic potato smells enveloped her and put her off. She had already thrown away the annoying lunch her breast-cancer-ridden mother packed her, despite knowing Miriam wasn’t eating again.
She closed her eyes and tried to unburden herself from the scattered sounds of girls giggling. She developed this act of turning inward in kindergarten after plugging her ears with her fingers miscarried her attempt to hide.
Something suddenly sliced her right arm. She slapped the sting away with her left hand and looked up and around.
There she was.
The girl who kissed her delicately on the mouth under the football field's bleachers last year. The night when all was dark and damp and seized her heart in enough time to wipe her memory of everything that happened the rest of that night.
The girl was grinning at Miriam like men do at the end of winning a poker game and reaching for the money in the middle.
Miriam quickly looked down and saw that her hand had some blood on it. She ran to the nearest bathroom and looked at her arm in the grazed, lacerated mirror. It wasn’t as bad as she thought. Were her mother’s breasts as bad as she thought?
Her mouth was suddenly bone-dry, which she had always remedied with candy.
Miriam pulled a sweatshirt from her backpack, pulled it awkwardly over her head, and wandered light-headedly out of the bathroom.
The vending machine across the hall had the crystal-cracked goodness of stopping time.
About the Creator
Paul Aaron Domenick
My words...I am always a step away from madness. So, I always return to the site of the crime where the evidence points to the need for exchange. Find me in the embryo of my poetry and fiction, and I will find you in yours.
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Comments (1)
Lonely little birds are the children who want love and protection. The little girl in your story moved me. First, the problem with the mother. I liked the phrase here: 'Were her mother’s breasts as bad as she thought?'—very clever. Then, the incident with the second girl. These things happen in reality, even at older ages. What can I say? I wish the pain of these emotionally violated children would be soothed by love and that the world would become better for the little ones who are tormented by the whims of society." Τhird, the ending: ''The vending machine across the hall had the crystal-cracked goodness of stopping time.'' Excellent! :)