MicroHorror

“Is times eva gonna git any betta, Mama?” Daniel, sitting, staring blankly at the floorboards, utters in a whisper just above his weakened breath.
 
Mama slowly closes her eyes. She wants to say yes, but Mama, never one to tell a lie, just stands quietly before the stove. She opens her eyes again, stirring cabbage into a pot of boiling water.
 
“Git on up to your feet, boy, and git to work! You isn’t the only one in this house who is hungry!”
 
Daniel sluggishly pulls to his feet and grabs a flat-head screwdriver from the kitchen drawer. Mama grabs him by the wrist.
 
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, boy,” she says, looking down at her ten-year-old son: nothing more than a flesh bag of bones.
 
“Still don’t make it right, Mama.”
 
Mama loosens her grip and Daniel walks into the next room. His guilt pulls heavy on her heart. She wipes her hands clean on a towel and walks into the next room after him.
 
Daniel is kneeling down next to a lifeless body, digging the screwdriver deep beneath its middle fingernail and prying it backward. A tear falls from Mama’s eye.
 
“Go on, Danny, go on to your room… I’ll prepare dinner tonight, dontchu worry.”
 
Daniel looks up at Mama, her eyes full of tears, and goes to comfort her. Mama pushes him away.
 
“Go on, Danny… I’m sorry… just go.”
 
Daniel walks down the hallway and into his room, closing the door behind him.
 
As she kneels beside the body, she herself wonders how much longer they must live like this.