Flash Fiction: When You’re Leaving
I saw that shape again, the one I told you about. Why was I telling you? Maybe you were interested and would have liked to hear more, but what difference does it make anyway when you’re leaving?
I stood watching it for a long time. I think it’s a man taking the fish. I haven’t told my father. His fish will be his sole income soon and once the crops fail – and you know they will – the bank will come knocking. All that will be left is the fish.
Have you seen him lately? He asks for you. I tell him you are busy with your wife and her illnesses, that you are committed to her. He saw you as the son he might have had. My mother nearly died the night I was born. That was it for her. No more. She looks at me too long. I know she would have preferred it had you married me. Out from under her feet.
Maybe it’s for the best. I’ll go to the river tonight and I’ll seduce the poacher of my father’s fish. Maybe he will agree to provide; perhaps he’s in the market for a wife.
R.H.