|
Egypt
by Bruce Holland Rogers
The elder son went before
his father and said unto him, "Let me go to the concert next
Saturday, for the band is to be Good Charlotte."
And the Old Man said,
"Who are you to go to any concert on Saturday when you have been
grounded two weeks? And why is the lawn, which ought to have been mowed
yesterday, still untouched by any blade?"
And in the morning at
breakfast, the father could not drink of his coffee for it tasted of
rust, and he complained bitterly to his wife.
And the son said,
"Did I not ask you to let me go to the concert? Now the water is
turned to rust."
But the father’s heart
was hard, and he said unto the mother, "Run the cold water a bit to
clear the pipes before you make coffee."
And in the evening of the
same day, when the father put his feet up to read the paper, there arose
a great cry from the living room. "What in God’s name?" said
the father, and went to see his wife who stood pointing at a frog on the
coffee table.
And the younger son was
called to make an account of the frog, and he was made to take it back
outside and not to bring it again into the house.
And the older son said,
"Did I not ask you to let me go to the concert?"
And the next morning,
there arose again a great cry, this time from the bathroom where the
mother was combing the hair of the younger son. "Lice again?"
said the father. "They need to fumigate those kids. I have had it
about up to here with that school!"
And the older son said,
"It is not the school that keeps me from going to the
concert."
But the father’s heart
was hard, and he gave his son such a look.
And in the evening of the
same day, the father said, "Who left the screen door standing open?
The house is full of flies!"
And the son said,
"Let me go to the concert, for all the guys will be there and I
alone of all the guys will not."
And the father said,
"You should have thought of that before you went and got yourself
grounded."
And upon the morning of
the next day, the car would not start, and the father tried to get a
ride from a neighbor, but the neighbor’s car also was afflicted.
And the father said,
"I guess I will have to take the bus."
And the mother said,
"Wait a second. What’s that on your nose? Honey, you’ve got a
pimple."
And the father said,
"I know, I know. At my age."
And the sky darkened, and
there was hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it upon the
land since last summer.
And the hail smote the
windshield of the car that would not start.
And the son said,
"Let me go to the concert, else, if you refuse me, I will this
afternoon bring locusts into the house."
But the father made no
answer, and when he returned at the end of the day, on the kitchen
counter he found empty milk jugs, cookie packages, yogurt cups, ice
cream cartons, soda cans, and candy wrappers, and all the fruit was gone
from the crisper.
And the mother said,
"If you wanted to make it a rule that he couldn’t have his
friends over after school, you should have spelled that out when you
grounded him."
And that night, which was
to be a night of watching television as a family, a thick darkness
befell the room and they saw not one another nor the TV, and the mother
said, "Looks like the whole neighborhood is out."
And the son said,
"Let me go to the concert, for I am bored out of my skull and have
suffered punishment enough."
But the father said,
"Pester me no more on this and take heed to thyself; ask not again,
for in that hour you ask me again, from that hour will you be grounded
until your eighteenth birthday."
And upon the morning of
the Saturday, the son had such a headache, like unto death, and he
moaned most grievously not for himself, but for the suffering of his
parents who must mourn his passing in the knowledge that it had been in
their power to grant him a dying wish, yet they had refused.
But the father’s heart
was harder than the heart of Pharaoh.
And it came to pass that
the son listened to the songs of Good Charlotte on his iPod alone in his
room, and he did not die.
Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers have won a Pushcart Prize, the World Fantasy Award, and two Nebula Awards, among other honors. He teaches fiction writing for the Whidbey Writers low-residency MFA, and also teaches writing seminars in Greece
(www.write-in-crete.com) and Italy
(www.write-across-europe.com). Subscribers from all over the world receive his newest stories by e-mail. See
www.shortshortshort.com. He recently lived near the St. Clair subway station in Toronto, but now resides in Eugene, Oregon. |
