Always Tuck your Children in at Night

(One of my submissions to the Boise Weekly Fiction 101 contest, 2008.)

Daddy, come home, I’m scared.

It’s shadows, turn on the lights.

It’s the crack daddy, it’s watching me.

Change rooms, it’ll be all right.

He stopped for milk, a nudie, and beer. Kid was old enough to watch himself now. Jumping at shadows, crying at the dark. He’d never acted like this at that age.

At home the child sat on the grass, door ajar; mosquitoes and moths highway’d in and out.

Why aren’t you inside?

The crack is watching me.

He pointed to the crack, scoffed, scolded and yelled, but dropped the essentials when his gaze met the crack’s stare.