Square Peg
(14th January, Story #14/366.)
The stink of brewing coffee overwhelmed the air, stirred by a fresh breeze from the window. The kids ate cereal, or, in the case of the youngest, dumped it out on to the floor. Their mother sighed and mopped it up, her kind voice carrying an edge honed by hourly wakings and an early start.
"Where's Daddy?" asked the older child, wiping milk from her chin with the sleeve of her pyjamas. "When's he coming back?"
"He's working, sweetie," was the reply. "Eat up, we want to be on time for school. Shall we go to the park when I pick you up? Or to Poppies for cake and a bambacino?"
The girl shoveled more cereal in, moving on to a new topic with ease. After a brief pause, filled with thoughtful chewing and a slight frown she said, "Can I play at Maisie's?"
She seemed unconcerned that neither questions had actually been answered. Perhaps if her dad had been more present when he was home, she'd miss him more now.
Or perhaps, on some level, maybe all the way down in her childish bones, she didn't miss him because he hadn't left. He was here now, watching her drip milk on the tabletop, and push her blonde fringe out of her eyes with a careless swipe of her pudgy fingers.
These thoughts are hard to hold in this shaggy head. It was getting harder every day to resist this shape, to remember what he was. What he thought he was, anyway. He wasn't sure.
The mention of "the park" had perked his ears and twitched his tail, as if on a puppet's string. He was powerless to stop the excitement building as he watched the laborious shoe-finding and putting-on process. Yesterday, he'd caught himself licking his own arsehole, and then, with an internal shrug he kept doing it.
But it was hard to even think of things like "yesterday" or "tomorrow". These were square-peg-thoughts in his round-hole-head.
It felt good to be accompanying them to school, though. Guilt was a square-peg feeling, but it kept trying to nudge its way in there, this insistent hunch that maybe he should have been doing this all along.
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Word count: 366
Submitted on 13th January at 00:36AM
* Author's Note *
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment to make it easy for me to reciprocate. If you enjoyed it, the best compliment you can give me is to read another, or share it! I assume you know how subscribing works, so I never ask people to do that.
The story behind the story: I'm writing a story every day this year. This one makes a 14 day streak. I'll link to the others below.
The Prompt: This one continues from "Honour and Obey". I think it works as a stand-alone story, as well, but let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I'm bending my own microfiction brief here by serialising a couple of these, but in my defence... well, it was fun and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
If you are joining me on this "story every day" adventure, please leave a link in the comments.
JANUARY MICROFICTIONS
3rd: One Day, I Just Disappeared
ETA Rachel's piece for the 14th!
About the Creator
L.C. Schäfer
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I'm not a writer! I've just had too much coffee!
Sometimes writes under S.E.Holz
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Comments (8)
Well, that's one way to learn some important lessons! Really enjoying this, L. C!
Dang!! This was so intriguing, both as a stand-alone piece and as a serialized one. What an awesome challenge for the year! I'm so looking forward to these!
This definitely works as a standalone story, and I was certainly NOT expecting the connection to Honour and Obey! Wow and wow again! You really drew me in and pulled a little existential horror out of nowhere to really make me think. Unfair, in a way, these reports aren't going to write themselves and you've gone and settled this lingering dread between my ears to eat up my attention... Loved this Story LC!
I liked the serialization, L.C. I had suspicions that Dad was the dog he always acted. Good to have it confirmed.
Great story L.C., but coffee doesn’t stink! lol not even to a dog 😂😂. Am I right in interpreting this story as the daddy died and was reincarnated as the dog?
unanswered questions-unresolved issues
I was thinking this was a continuation! This could become an incredible story of the losing of "self"!
💙