Dark Fiction - Burn

Burn

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash 

My insides hurt. Worse than that time I swallowed a measure of Dad’s best whisky when I was four. I got such a hidin’ for that. He turned his back for half a minute to do somethin’ at the kitchen table, an’ I walk in in my little red dungarees, lookin’ for somethin’ to drink.

I remember the sunlight shinin’ through the dusty window. It was that late arternoon light that washes everythin’ and makes it look real pretty. It shon on the shot glass, the golden light hittin’ the already magic lookin’ liquid. I think my young mind just knew it was somethin’ grand. Why would it glow like that? I snatched it from the table and gulped it right down. God did it burn!

Dad turned around when the coughin’ started and swore at me when the glass exploded on the tiled kitchen floor. I don’t know what bothered ’im more. The mess, the sick little kid, the wasted whisky. Could ’ave bin all three. Could ’ave bin somethin’ else entirely. Three days my tummy ache lasted. All I could manage was bread an’ milk. I remember bein’ most upset by not bein’ able to eat my sweets. The shop down the road sold chewy jelly worms that always fascinated me. You could bite’em in half, stretch’em, suck on ‘em. You name it, I tried it. Always my favourite. I couldn’t do that now, stretch’em and whatnot. Not with my teeth. I’d swap this tummy ache for that one any day though. Now all I’ve next to me is a small plastic cup thing with thick green liquid inside. The sun is shinin’ on it now, but it ain’t golden. Still burns goin’ down though.

--THE END--

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