Comments welcome at femecrivain at netdot dot com - or
either via the handy form on my website:
http://www.asstr.org/~Souvie
Please, no reposting without asking me first. It's "I
write, you read" not "I give, you take."
- - - - -
"Garbage Day"
copyright June 2002
by Souvie
(A "flash" in 284 words.)
Normally Friday was garbage day, but when it fell on a holiday,
they collected a day early.
Thursday morning, after Rachel was off to school and Bert had
left for work, Betty wandered through the house, making sure all
the cans had been emptied. Normally Rachel was in charge of
taking the individual cans scattered throughout the house and
dumping them in the kitchen trash on Thursday nights. That way
Bert could take out the trash on his way to the car Friday
morning.
Since the garbage was running early, some cans had been
forgotten. She gathered up the trash from the main bathroom,
then the laundry room, and finally checked Rachel's room. The
can was full to the top.
Betty sighed. The was going through the rebellious phase:
sixteen going on twenty-one.
Betty, rubber gloves in place, picked up a handful of trash to
shove in the larger bag she was toting. There among the
Clearasil pads, wadded up notebook paper, and wrapped up tampons
was a used condom. Betty dropped everything quickly into the
larger trash bag.
A condom! She hadn't even known Rachel was dating anyone, let
alone having sex. It shouldn't have surprised her that her
daughter was sexually active. They'd always been open in their
discussions about sex, but she'd still nursed the hope that her
daughter would wait 'til she married.
"At least she's practicing safe sex," Betty murmured to
herself. "I guess I should be thankful for that."
She spread the large bag wide and picked up the smaller can,
dumping the rest of the trash all at once instead of handful by
handful.
More than a dozen used, soggy rubbers were buried at the bottom.
THE END
|
|
