Friday 7 December 2018


The Tunnel

‘Why do you keep pestering mama? She can’t tell you anything? You are too small to understand.’
The little boy looked at his sister. She was not smiling; that troubled him. Mama was always crying; that pained him.
‘When will papa come?’
‘I don’t know!’ she almost shrieked. Then she felt sorry for him.
‘I want to go to papa!’ he shouted back.
‘You can’t!’ she blurted, unknowingly.
‘Papa!’ he screamed.
‘Stop! He can’t come. He is gone to the other world.’
‘I will go to him….through that tunnel…. you once told me that the tunnel opened into another world……..’
The sister stood speechless.
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A post for Friday Fictioneers on a photo prompt.
Word count 104

18 comments:

  1. And now she has to commit the cruelty of explaining to him that she lied

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  2. As awful as the truth is, it's the only way to maintain mutual trust.

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  3. I wonder how young the sister is. This has to be tearing her apart too.

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  4. A terrible thing to try to explain to a child.

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  5. A touching tale, i b arora, and you tell it fluently and descriptively.

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  6. Dear Arora,

    Such a sad tale. And how hard for the sister to tell her brother the tragic news. Nicely done.

    Shalom

    Rochelle

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  7. Ah. In our effort to spare children from harsh truth, we do compound the problem. Good writing .

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  8. Truth is sometimes better than even the whitest of lies.

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  9. Heartbreaking to have to admit to lying and explain the child has lost his father at the same time. Very emotional write.

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  10. The trouble when you start with lies is you need to continue them...

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