Day 1 Winner of Quarto’s 2023 Thunderdome Flash Fiction Contest. View the prompt here
Illustration by Watson Frank
Pond ice cracked with skates—hairlines burning—webs, flush with light. Watch it now! Loose over the skin of each hack and eating itself in the snow. Bounds in like a chased hare over the yard—Jesus, did you ever see anything so fierce—shatters in waves against the house. Morning, thin and wiry, settling the place; and with it, the quiet.
I’m here most days I can get away with it. The one inside’s a known lout, there’s no danger there. Sure wasn't Lynch saying to me the other day that were there work in the bed he’d sleep on the floor. Ha! No, no trouble there. Hasn’t noticed yet or else there’d be some bother. And it works out better, sure, don’t I give him some incentive then. Maybe then he’d wake for the dawn the lazy bollocks.
At a gentle creep now, no sense in tempting. Quick past the door’s leaky heat (watch where dirt turns to mush) down under the window (pull off the old cap there) quickly, quickly, around to the post—yes, oh, we’re making good time now. The trick is to crack it open with speed; any hesitation and creak you’re done, sent up the ways and half-purple by noon. Ah, but it’s an old trick for me now.
Bills and bills and bills by God did you ever see the like of it. An absolute loafer of a man if there ever was one. Thumb through now: the brother, useless, the daughter, useless, aha! There, the aunt. Quickly the knife clean under, there we go; my beloved Maurice by God the old biddy goes on take this photo (the vanity of some people!) throw that aside and this gift There! There! Fifteen, no, twenty, by Jesus if it isn't Christmas! Back up we go, on off—away!