flash fiction: carkeyless cellphoneless
kildra turned back, her 2 children skipping or sulking behind her, 1 named jean who walked as if a weight dragged at her feet, the other named song who found things or situations that forced her to jump, they both had surpassed fatigue, crying, complaining long ago — so if these children can survive kildra figured then so should she, they will all survive if they have the will to — jean grabs kildra by the dress, kildra is pulled back, yanked back, she almost loses her balance, she could have fallen on a rock, broken her spine — kildra knows who did that, that it was jean, but she doesn’t even bother to turn back once again to yell at her or ask her why she did that, because probably it was the 4th time in the last half hour, the long walk has tired out her feet, they all are walking on tired feet, but they must continue to walk because the sun is disappearing —
song says that she remembers
the times when she’d sit in her room and watch videos all by herself, when she had her own room and ipad, she’d eat cheetos and chocolate, sometimes hide the snacks under her bed, and wake up in the middle of the night frightened that she’d forgotten about the hidden snacks, thinking they would have turned moldy or mice or even her cat had found it, she wasn’t sure whether cats like dogs can’t handle chocolate, which added to the panic, whether leather the family cat would be unreversibly injured — and then she’d dive under the bed, snatch the snacks as if they were going to run away, and she’d sleep with it, waking up with chocolate in her hair — and kildra would find her like that, and get mad to the point of spanking her, song laughed at first thinking her mother was going to tickle her, because the wrestling at first felt more like tickling, but she’d find out soon enough —
kildra stops everyone at a street corner
and as the traffic races by she’s trying to figure out which way to turn, holding jean’s hand, locking her other hand around song’s head, she’s trying to wriggle free — kildra says, song you need to stop, where are you going to go, what are you going to do if you get away, sprint across the street, what is the point of that? to die? that was the threat from her boyfriend that she’d die, song would die, they all would die, and kildra didn’t even have the time to find car keys or anything, she’d said for a long time, to her mother or anyone who would listen, that if it came to this she’d just run the hell out of the house naked shoeless carkeyless cellphoneless then fine she’d just go as fast as she could to save the kids and save herself, now heading to her friend dana’s house, who might or might not be there —
but at lease kildra had shoes
the kids had shoes on to, she had enough time for that, no idea what happened to the phone — probably stanis hid it — stanis with a hammer in his hand first pounding the table with it then breaking coffee cups — then saying song’s name, song who just wanted to watch her ipad — kildra thinks she at least could have taken song’s ipad with her only if she would have thought of it — song breaks free from her mother’s grasp and she runs across the street but thank god thanks to god or good luck or coincidence or chance the pedestrian light turned green, the cars stopped halted, a man watches song run and covers his mouth with concern, kildra waves as if to say thank you, just for stopping, as you should, because the night already was long enough —
Image by Radosław Turek from Pixabay
