Month: May 2019

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Retro Tuesday 5-28-2019

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Response – JSW Prompt 5-14-2018

Feel free to join in and respond to the prompt. Please try to keep your response under 300 word (recommended, not law). I will re-blog your post to my site.

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He hesitated for a moment, staring through the brush, trying to determine what the red and blue on the creek edge might be. It couldn’t be what he thought it might be. There was no way. No way in all the world.

Yet, he couldn’t walk way. He had to be sure. Doubly sure. Triply sure. And so he walked through the brush, winding his way down to the creek. Kneeling. Reaching out a shaking hand.

It… the thing of red and blue…. half hidden in the weeds… partially in the water…. was a small backpack. A child’s backpack.

Red and blue. Thomas the Tank Engine.

The backpack dropped from nerve-less fingers and he stumbled back, through brush and thorns, tearing flesh and cloth, the low sound of some hurt thing issuing from his throat.

He fell, rolled down a short slope and lay at the bottom. He hadn’t done this, but he couldn’t remember. Everything was so confused. So much blackness and dark. So little light.

Johny. Johny. Little hurt thing Johny.Where’d he gone? What’d he done? Why was his backpack here?

Little Johny. He loved his little brother Johny. Loved him. Loved him. Loved him.

And hated him. But he’d never. No, never, ever, do this. Not to his little brother Johny.

He ran until he couldn’t run any longer. Until the pain in his side crumbled him to ground and he curled up around himself to hold out the lack of memories.

He couldn’t have done it.  Couldn’t have. Repeat it enough and he might believe it. Might. Might not.

He woke in the morning, rain-soaked and freezing. Still curled into a ball. Lay there letting the rain wash away memories he couldn’t remember.