Archive for the ‘prose’ Category
The Fearing Harold
It was 12:04 when the noise began
A scrape and a whine, again and again
Under the eaves and the roof of tin
Where Harold made his home
His heart beat madly in his chest
Aroused so suddenly from his rest
And now his fear started to crest
As the sound began to roam
He sat straight upright on his bed
Beads of sweat rolled down his head
Paralyzed with horrible dread
That he would not last the night
Closer now the sound approached
On his bedroom it would soon encroach
A thought his brain could not broach
He reached out for his light
A hollow “Bang!” from down the hall
As a slamming door made a picture fall
Now something thumping against the wall
Was moving toward his room
He forced himself to flick on the light
But the golden beam that pierced the night
Only served to increase his fright
For he was sure he would see his doom
Then it stopped…he looked around
He grew more nervous at the lack of sound
He resisted the urge to turn around
When a tapping pierced the silence
Tap-tap-tap! Insisted the thrum
Keeping a beat like a cannibal’s drum
He turned around feeling numb
And prepared for any violence
His eyes beheld a woman there
He sat transfixed by her stare
Her face was framed by messy hair
And she wore a poison frown
“Harold!” she said with a nasty bite,
He saw her gown was wet by the light
“Next time you need to go in the night,
PLEASE PUT THE SEAT BACK DOWN!”
It just so happened to be that today was Millicent’s favorite day of the week.
“Today is chocolate milk day!” she told her mother before leaving the house to go wait for the bus.
“Yes, dear,” her mother intoned as she handed her a pink metal lunchpail emblazoned with Barbie and Ken enjoying a stroll through the pinkest, most glitter-filled park her mother has ever seen depicted anywhere outside of her own nightmares.
Millicent paid no mind to her mother’s emotionless response. She was quite accustomed her mother’s lack of excitement at this point in her life. She had never known her mother to care about much of anything, but her enthusiasm was not diminished. It was chocolate milk day, after all!
Millicent waited for the bus patiently, a wide smile on her face. She hummed a simple tune to herself, occasionally singing outloud (albeit very quietly) “it’s choc-o-late milk day” and then returning to humming.
Finally, the bus pulled up. The doors creaked open, and Millicent stepped up, smiling at the driver.
“Good morning, Missus Gunderson,” she said as she boarded the bus, “today is chocolate milk day!”
Mrs. Gunderson ignored her, as she ignored all children most of the time, and pulled the bus door shut with an extended grunt and a quick fart that no one heard. Millicent went to her usual seat.
Behind her sat Betty Sue Maris. Betty Sue was a year ahead of Millicent in school, but she looked like she should have been on the bus to the junior high. She was easily a foot taller than Millicent, and as mean as a hive of bees that had been struck by lightning.
“What are you so happy about, twerp?” asked Betty Sue angrily.
“Why, it’s chocolate milk day!” replied Millicent happily.
“Whatever,” said Betty Sue as she bonked Millicent on the back of the head with her math book repeatedly, as she usually did during their ride to school.
It was exactly three hours later that Mrs. Dressley, the playground aide, noticed a commotion in a corner of the playground during 5th and 6th grade recess. A slowly milling circle of children had formed…never a good sign. Mrs. Dressley ran towards the mass of children as quickly as her short legs would take her, raising her whistle to her lips in case she needed to sound the alarm.
She pushed through the crowd. She was surprised to find that the children moved out of her way with very little resistance, almost as if they had been drugged. This was not a normal playground fight, she realized with mounting confusion.
When she reached the center of the mob and looked down to the ground, she found that her jaw went slack, and no words immediately came to her mouth. She dropped her whistle, and the breath she had been drawing in to blow it escaped from her lips in a quiet whistle. Mrs. Dressley could not recall a time in all of her ten years as a playground aide that she had been at a complete loss as to what to do.
There, before her, was Millicent Kersley, her pigtails slightly disheveled. Millicent’s face bore a garish and exaggerated grin. Underneath Millicent, pinned to the ground, lay Betty Sue Maris, face-down. Millicent had her left hand entwined in Betty Sue’s mousy brown hair, and was repeatedly dunking her face in a large, sloppy mud puddle and shouting “TODAY IS MY FAVORITE DAY! IT’S CHOCOLATE MILK DAY, BITCH! DRINK IT UP!”
