Door locked. Windows too. No escape.
Everyday.
I cry out. None hear.
Everyday.
Fed once. Not yet.
A bird lands outside. Plump. Turns its head. Flies away.
Nothing to do but sleep.
Footsteps. Heavy. Him.
I dash.
Keys jingle. Him.
I hide.
Lock turns. Door opens. He enters.
I pounce. I strike.
He grabs me. Strong. Breaks my grip. Lifts me up.
Puts me down. On my back. Hand on my stomach. Another on my neck.
I squirm.
He rubs my neck. Then under my chin.
I can’t help but purr.
Afterword
The task was to write a story of 100 words or less on the theme of ‘loop’.
Did the last line change your perspective of the whole piece (maybe you re-read it, in a different light)? Or did you guess the twist?
As you’d expect for flash fiction, there were a lot of ideas that didn’t make it into the final draft. Some of these would have made the twist easier to guess. For example, if I had kept in “Collared”, what would you have thought? Other ideas meant that the twist would have been revealed a little earlier, which I wasn’t keen on.
Photo attribution: thanks to Christopher Martyn on Unsplash.