Sneaking

Sneaking

Author’s Notes: another in
class writing assignment. Prompt: write variations on the opening sentence.

          It’s impossible to sneak in at night. The door opens with a
scream and his heavy boots clunk on the floor. His mother is sleeping off a
bottle of vodka at the kitchen table and his father is on his eight class=GramE>beer as he watches some late night football game. The tall
man stands and approaches his son as he enters the house but the teenager is
smarter than he had been as a child and ducks under his father’s arm and runs.
He reaches the cellar door and slams it behind him. There will be no blows
tonight.

          It is impossible to sneak out in the morning, the wind
howls outside like something alive and the cellar door creaks in a high pitched
squeal. His mother is leaning against the old kitchen table as she battles a
massive hangover. His father is waiting for him, already on his sixth beer, by
the door. The teenager is swift, but today is different just as each day is
always different and his father manages a lucky grab at the back of his shirt.
Today there will be blood.

End