“Ding Dong”
I most likely won’t be giving out candy this Halloween; even without the looming threat of Pandemic few children come to our apartment block unless we have a massive display on the lawn.
The least I can portion out from the blue pumpkin for all my followers is this little bit of flash fiction apropos of the season. It’s short & it’s sweet, & you won’t have to burn off the calories afterwards. A bonus for me, the character is named for my troublesome baby brother. There are some rewards to being an unknown author.
Ding Dong
Josef Matulich
Matthew tensed in his recliner as he heard the sound of the doorbell. His ongoing feud with the neighborhood kids had started with doorbells, the old “ring and dash”. Things escalated to toilet paper, eggs and finally a picture of a penis etched into his lawn with bleach. He wouldn’t think the little monsters would go back to small potatoes now.
He extricated himself from his chair, grabbed his cane and made it to the front door as swiftly as his knees would allow. He had a hopeful thought that it might be the cops with the kids held up by the scruff of the neck on his front porch.
No such luck.
Matthew opened the front door to find a burning brown paper bag on his welcome mat.
He sighed. This trick had been old when Truman had been President: the flaming bag of dog poop. The victim was supposed to panic and stomp out the fire, splattering hot dog excrement all over their shoes and front step.
This wasn’t Matthew’s first rodeo.
He set the cane against the doorframe and bent over to grab both ends of the mat. Holding it in a gentle curve to contain the flaming package, he gently lobbed it onto the front sidewalk where it could burn down harmlessly. In the morning, he could hose off the walk without having to deal with any of the crap these kids had given him.
Matthew was feeling pretty satisfied about how this latest engagement had turned out until he noticed the black tripwire dangling from the underside and the metal ring from a grenade at its end.
