Flash Fiction: Lullaby

This flash piece was written for the 10 October2014 Flash! Friday competition and received third runner up.  The photo and “a surgery” was the prompt. 

The story “Shells”also received third runner up.

Lullaby

I crept from beneath the bed when the clowns left. Some of the children laughed at their antics, but Anton refused. He said they looked like painted nightmares, but I envied them. I couldn’t hide my disfigured face.

“Will you go with me into surgery?” His eyes were huge in his pale face.

I nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed I took his hand and sang him his lullaby. I wanted to tell him I was sorry that the doctors were going to change his mind.

We cried in the theatre. The doctors thought he was scared of needles. But we both knew what the surgery meant.

I held his hand and sang his lullaby as he fell asleep on the table. And I held it through the whole surgery. He was my human and I his bogeyman. He was my best friend. And he would never be able to see me again.

Circus clowns visit sick boy. CC photo Boston Public Library.