The preceding flash fiction pieces, for national poetry month, will (almost) all be generated through using Rory's Story Cubes (given to me by Carla Blaschka for my 45th birthday), the Stranger (Savage Love), and Craigslist (personal ads, which immensely fascinate me).
March 31, 2013
Rory’s heart was locked up tight.
Rory remembered the first time he was locked in the closet. He was eight years old. He reached for the ketchup and tipped over his glass of milk. The milk flowed across the table into his stepmom's lap. She was wearing her best Easter clothes. She grabbed him by the ear and drug him down the hall and shoved him into the closet. She jammed the door shut with a chair and sat there while Rory screamed and flung himself at the door.
Rory spent several hours each week in the cramped punishment room. He prayed, on his knees, to whatever gods existed that he be delivered from this darkness. A thin filament of light filtered through the key hole. It became a constant character in his dreams.
Hidden under loose floor boards, Rory found a box of revealing lingerie, crusty valentine chocolates, and Alex Haley’s book “Roots.” Rory’s African grandfather married a Jew. Oppression existed in his genes. Every tequila sweetened breath his father breathed was an expression of it. Rory imagined the emotional torture one might feel for being forced into labor.
He hated doing the laundry, washing dishes, scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush, and mowing the lawn.
After what seemed like days, “You can come out of the closet if you promise to be a good little boy and do the right thing,” his stepmother would intone in a firm voice.
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