Everyday Canvas

Stripes

Prompt: Tell us a flash fiction story about a boy in a striped hat.


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The five-year-old put his striped hat on. His favorite hat, the one Mommy bought for the beach. Those stripes stood for something but he didn’t know what. That didn’t matter, though. He liked it that they were white like the stripes of a zebra. Maybe he became a zebra when he put his hat on.

He wanted to make a sound like a Zebra, but he didn’t know how a zebra sounded. Still, making a sound, any sound, had to be better than no sound, so he screamed. He screamed as loud as he could, his small round face growing red and blotchy, his temples throbbing, his eyes bulging.

“Switch that off!” his dad yelled. “What a pest!’

The boy stopped, hunching forward.

“Look at me!” his dad clasped his chin. “Are you out of your mind? What was that for?”

The boy hunched again, his lips twitching. He looked away although he couldn’t move his head against his dad’s grip.

“Talk! What was that for?”

He whispered. “My hat has stripes. I was a Zebra.”

His dad let go of his chin but yanked the hat off the boy's head, then pulled off its stripes. “Now, no more stripes. No more zebra!" He threw the hat on the table. "Don’t you know your mother is asleep? Can’t you understand she’s dying?”

As his dad began sobbing uncontrollably, the boy backed off, curling against the wall. Finally, he knew what those stripes stood for. Those stripes now lying on the tiles.

They were stripes of pain.