Day 2 Winner of Quarto’s 2022 Thunderdome Flash Fiction Contest. View the prompt here.
Content warning for violence.
When L asks me to watch The Godfather, I say yes. I expect to love The Godfather, which I do for one hour and fifty minutes, the exact time it takes me to realize The Godfather is a horror film. L smiles gleefully at the screen, making mental note of the ambrosia-covered camera angles and dialogue somersaults. I am frozen on the right couch cushion because now Connie with her bruised face and wild eyes is smashing her nice silverware onto her dining room floor.
Then her husband is on her, and I look away.
L asks me then if I like the movie, and I say I do not. He is hurt. Why? He asks. Why don’t you like it? I say it reminds me of a dream I had the night before. He asks what dream, and so I tell him (because he asked).
I am sitting at a dinner table inside a glass box. Outside the box, a crowd of people watch me. Inside, sits a faceless woman.
“Repeat what happened.” I don’t know how she speaks without a mouth, but people seem to manage in dreams.
“The people outside will hear.”
“You’re the one who reported in the first place. We warned you how it would end.”
I look down at the empty porcelain plate balanced on the table before me, and someone else’s face looks back. I smash the plate on the ground, but the pieces form his smile, and somewhere far away I can hear myself laughing. I reach down for the pieces and squeeze them in my hands until his teeth slice through my palms.
I tell L this is the reason I do not like The Godfather. He turns off the TV, and in its black reflection I see his horror.