Regret Has a Serrated Spoon

 

I just did something unforgivable.

Shakespeare says, “What’s done cannot be undone.”

I know the pain of this truth.

I have felt the words “blind rage”. I don’t remember all of what I did in my fury.

No one talks about the confusion that follows, when you’re in a heap on the floor wondering what happened. Or the regret that scoops you out like a cantaloupe.

I am hollow.

How fortunate I am that regret has a serrated spoon. As an empty husk, there’s a chance I can live.

With the fragmented memories of this thing that I did.

 

 

Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

March 9, 2016 prompt: Monster – In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a monster

 

 

Toddler Time

 

Every Saturday, Lucy walked past groups of high school kids smoking in the arched library entrance.

“Hey, Lucy! Headed in for Toddler Time?”

“Mother Goose?” they mocked.

She grinned. “Dr. Seuss today, boys. Care to join?”

“Do we get a juice box?”

Lucy climbed the brick stairs and closed the door on their laughter.

The librarians busied themselves when they saw her.

“No worries, ladies. My kind of crazy isn’t contagious.”

Some of them had the decency to blush.

She reached the children’s section, charred from last year’s tragic fire, and smiled at the little ones waiting for her.

 

 

Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

March 2, 2016 prompt: Libraries – In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes a library