FELICIA HEILGENDORFF

He stood staring at the toilet a little while longer. It held memories. When he had been a child, he had accidentally flushed down his pet mouse. He had cried endlessly that day, all alone in the bathroom, staring at the already old and cracked white toilet seat, but the mouse had stayed gone. At the end of the day, when his parents came home from work, he told his mother that he had let the mouse go – he hadn’t wanted to admit and his mother believed him.

Then, years later, when the house was his and his alone, he had planted flowers inside, still remembering how the mouse had been helplessly flushed to his doom. It had been like that until his nephew had scrunched up his nose at the sight and decided to throw it out, once and for all. He had been signed off as a crazy old man, so he had no say in the matter.

A van suddenly stopped by his side and two men jumped out. They grabbed the old stuff that was lying around, including the toilet and tossed it inside, before vanishing again around the curb. A tear rolled down the old man’s face before he went back inside.

© 2016

Friday Fictioneers, 25 March 2016

Photo provided by Ted Strutz