Shelter – A Flash Fiction


She had done a fabulous job with him.
It had taken years. Years of patient molding, sculpting, bathing, and cleansing of body and mind. The hours spent encouraging him at his studies or the gym. The late night phone calls scaring away the hussies who had been forward enough to call her little darling.

“Golly, Ma,” he said. “I would sure like to go to college some day.”

Her lips tightened like her hand around his tweed-jacketed arm. She stared at his eyes until he looked away. There was a pale shadow of beard across his cheek. She sighed. Shaving him twice a day wasn’t enough anymore.

“College is a sinful place, darling. Now let’s go home so you can rub my feet.”

She found his jury-rigged TV antenna that night, and put it in the rubbish while he slept.