Nightmare Fuel 2016, Day the Seventeenth - Playtime

Getting back to this project, almost a week behind. Some days it's harder to find inspiration, or to find time. This is one that doesn't quite fit the photo, but it doesn't quite NOT fit it either.




"Playtime"

You and Will loved the woods. You know they weren't really woods - at least you do now. Just a few stands of trees behind the identical row-houses in which your family lived, a short walk from the low, brick prison bunker of a school building.

Not that it's the school that was the prison.

You always called it the woods, and your parents always humored you.

"We're off to play in the woods, Mom."

"Who  are you playing with?"

"Just Will."

This answer always disappointed them. "Don't you want to see if any of your friends from school want to play?"

"Nah. Just me and Will."

You ran out, leaving their whispered conversations of "too old for this" and "antisocial" and "what's wrong with her" behind. There were always whispered conversations, never anything to your face.

They never seemed to know that you could hear them.


You and Will had been exploring the woods that are not woods for years when he found it. It was always Will who found things, though he never seemed to know what they were any better than you did. This time it was obvious to you that it was an old refrigerator with the door taken off, but Will insisted that it was a very old flying saucer, its windows and doors long missing.

You remember everything about it. The crunch of dry autumn leaves under your feet, the crisp cool air, the long shadows cast by the sun, low behind the tall, half-bare trees. Mostly, you remember the day the other kids found you.

They were a few years older, at that age when boys think they're young men but aren't really yet. They saw us at the spaceship -- well, they saw me. Not Will.

I don't remember all the things they yelled, but "faggot" was one and "loser". And more.

Then there was only the sound of their muffled laughter far behind me and the snap of dry twigs and crunch of leaves as I ran back home. Will didn't come with me.

In fact, that was the last I ever saw him. When I came back to the spaceship it wasn't a spaceship; just an empty refrigerator in an empty spot under the trees, littered with empty beer cans.

Phoo via The Vintage News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pgnblade/posts/10100220851344053