twiddle - "A Dutiful Child"
There is a house on a hill full of secrets and screams.
No one goes up there any more.
And in a window of that house never visited by light, a little girl watches the world she can't touch.
Once upon a time, she did. But then she was told to stay, and wait, with her books and her toys. Being a dutiful child, she did exactly that.
She wanders down the hallways, missing electric illumination. "Hello, Daddy," she says softly at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn't reply. He never does, any more.
No power means no chance of doing wrong by cooking. The kitchen surrenders peanut butter and bread. It's become a boring meal. She doesn't complain. Good girls don't.
A trip to the library for a book from the shelf that's hers, hers alone, gifts her with a book by Poe. The story about the monkey - that one always makes her laugh.
Book in one hand, food in another, she carefully steps around her father and returns to her room to read by sunlight until words vanish into the dark. Then she'll watch the street, like always, skin pressed against the glass, hoping for Tomorrow to bring someone to her door.
No one goes up there any more.
And in a window of that house never visited by light, a little girl watches the world she can't touch.
Once upon a time, she did. But then she was told to stay, and wait, with her books and her toys. Being a dutiful child, she did exactly that.
She wanders down the hallways, missing electric illumination. "Hello, Daddy," she says softly at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn't reply. He never does, any more.
No power means no chance of doing wrong by cooking. The kitchen surrenders peanut butter and bread. It's become a boring meal. She doesn't complain. Good girls don't.
A trip to the library for a book from the shelf that's hers, hers alone, gifts her with a book by Poe. The story about the monkey - that one always makes her laugh.
Book in one hand, food in another, she carefully steps around her father and returns to her room to read by sunlight until words vanish into the dark. Then she'll watch the street, like always, skin pressed against the glass, hoping for Tomorrow to bring someone to her door.