The Team

The boy hobbled into the ground; clutched in his left arm was a football that his mother had gifted him. Although every step he took was painstaking yet his innocent face looked truly radiant for he had dressed like other players; but he was not a part of the team.

The mother looked through the window of her bedroom. She looked at her son and felt queasy; an irrepressible desire to scream rose in her heart. It was all her fault and she knew it. She clenched her fists, almost fiercely; the nails began to hurt her palms.

‘Why does my boy have to pay for my sins?’

The regret was soul-wrenching; more so because her mother had repeatedly warned her. But she had refused to listen to her. She wanted to punish her for being a bad mother; she had separated from her father when she was just five.

She eventually stopped using drugs; but by then it was too late. She gave birth to a deformed boy. Her son was handsome like his father but he was condemned to hobble all through his life.  

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A post for Flash Fictionfor Aspiring Writers on a picture prompt

and for Three WordWednesday: word prompts- painstaking, radiant, queasy.

Word count 186