A Childhood Lesson

A Dark Piece of Flash Fiction

My parents once caught me with cigarettes and forced me to smoke a whole pack at once. What they didn’t foresee was how literal I would interpret their directions. I bundled every stogey together with an elastic band and lit them on a stove coil at max heat, and “accidentally” burned my house down.

With a backdrop of smoldering wreckage and billowing clouds of ash, my parents fumed at me while dealing with the fire and police department. They threatened to ground me for weeks, so I walked over to a group of police officers with a traumatized quiver in my lower lip. I told them my parents threatened to beat me if they found out I was gay and also threw in a little sexual assault allegations to make things more amusing.

As my parents toil in a jail cell to this day, I think we all know who learned their lesson.

---