Iqbal

(100-word flash fiction)

The rain battering the roof sounded like dancing skeletons. Or machine-gun fire. Both reminded him of Afghanistan.

Behind his closed sleepless eyelids rose images of families huddled in shacks, hiding their daughters, their young sons. Their once-proud brows shrunken by war and poverty. Their once erect backs, bent.

Only young Iqbal was different. Orphaned, rudderless, hanging around the camp doing odd jobs, immune to the horrors, always smiling, as though he, impossibly, saw only light everywhere.

For him, the war ended when Iqbal was found dead, hit by a stray American bullet.

Collateral damage, they said. Bloody murder, he thought.

~~~

Written for Friday Fictioneers.

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Yellow Heart

(100-word flash fiction)

I got up early to make Mummy a marmalade sandwich with a heart hole for Mother’s Day. Daddy called it Yellow Heart.  He said it would make Mummy very happy when she got home.

It’s 8 o’clock and Mummy isn’t home yet, so Daddy made me a peanut butter sandwich. But, I was still hungry so I started to eat Mummy’s sandwich too, when the doorbell rang.

But it’s not Mummy, it’s a policeman with his hat in his hand. Why is he whispering to Daddy while staring at me?

Is Mummy not coming back because I ate her sandwich?

~~~

* Apparently, on SnapChat, Yellow Heart means you are #1 best friends with each other :)

** Written for Friday Fictioneers.