Ribbon

“Water washes all. Mud and blood mingle, dancing in the bath with the floating hair of the pious ranger. Thecla only has quiet when her ears are submerged, spared from the movements outside the washroom shelter. If the undead get in, so be it. One prayer answered—just one!—and she may keep her faith. I shall struggle for the fallen, she thought, and shall spare no arrows. But Lord, no more screams. No more.”

“You wrote that?” Paul said. “Never knew you had such darkness in you.”

I tilted my head and observed how his body language shifted, after having heard my flash fiction. “Wasn’t what you expected?”

The man from church shrugged, and stood from the table. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think stories should end with happy ever after.” He laid down a wad of bills, and left me alone in the diner to think about the quaint fairy tales I once loved.