Ficly

Wishful Thinking

As the light guttered and sputtered, it cast distorted shadows on the walls of the stinking dirty hole in the ground that was her home. She knelt on the floor, desperately trying to protect a tiny flame with her frail and sickly body.

There was a soft creak as the warped frame of the only door opened behind her.

The man was only a dark shadow as he stood in the doorway. He was trying to scare her. Trying to prove that he was different now. But she knew him. She would always know him no matter how much the years of blood and pain had changed him. And so on this day, she sang, as she had every year, “Happy birthday to you…”

His expression didn’t change as the song came to a gradual close but, when he turned and walked out the door, she felt a smile turn her lips. She had watched as his eyes grew damp and shiny. She knew her little boy was coming back. Even if he didn’t know it yet.

This story has no comments.