Steel – Marshall Hart

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

 

Once upon a time there was the father of a small boy. The boys name was Tom and he lived in a city famous for its industrial smoke and murders. The father was an employee of the local steel mill and daily sent miles of metal through heated machines in a window less factory.

The father and Tom Lived with Amy who was the fathers much younger wife. They leased a small property near the mill, there was no plumbing, and this meager plot of land and the father’s small wage supplemented an adequate life.

Everyday after cleaning the house, washing the food and tending the animals, Amy would routinely force herself to vomit in the bathroom. She was detached and lived in fear, for, every night her husband would beat and rape her.

Tom’s growth as part of this picture went unnoticed. He was a baby, then a child. As the years progressed the layers slid neatly in place and Tom grew, fathoming piece by piece what was happening to his mother. Toms resolve fortified and the dependent child made steel to save his mother.

Because of that steel, it allowed Tom; a very intelligent boy to hatch a plan that would see the end of the tyranny and Tom would get his mother back.

His plan to destroy his father depended on the completion of a project to make a bomb. Tom had all he needed, as leftovers from the war were not hard to find.

He inserted a bomb inside one of the chickens his father would have to kill.

On the planned evening, Toms father returned from work, and headed down the back, to fetch a sick chicken and ends its life.

Tom waited; smoking one of his dads cigarettes and watching with Joy as finally he appeared, chicken under arm.

Tom activated the bomb and bits of his father splattered over the lawn, the dogs promptly cleaned him up

The End

 

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