Trash
by Pretender_Mel


Debbie needed something for show-and-tell. Something special. Something that none of the other kids would have. Which was why Broots was on his hands and knees, sweat beading on his forehead, digging through the back of his junk drawer for just such a prize. Having been one of those children that 99% of the other kids picked on for being a dork/geek/nerd/loser/or all of the above, Broots feared for his daughter being labeled the same. So the item had better be good. And from the urgent, pleading tone in her voice, it had better be really good.

Ah ha! An old motherboard he’d turned into a Rube Goldberg device. That should be fairly popular with the children. Or so he hoped. He pulled the thing out, blowing dust off its surface, noticing a scrap of paper clinging tenaciously to the back. He pulled it off gently, not wanting to damage it in the event it was some long-forgotten important information. Turning it over in his hands, he groaned. It was a picture of his ex-wife.

She looked pale and her belly was obviously swollen with the pregrnancy. However, her light pallor was not from the strains of carrying a child, it was from the many hours she spent glued to the casino machines, gambling away what meager money Broots had earned. The money that was supposed to go towards raising a family.

In a sudden flash of anger, he tore the picture in half and threw it back into the drawer. The pieces fluttered through the air for a moment, then settled in various locations among the odds-n-ends. Where they should be. In the trash, buried with other miscellaneous junk that formed the mistakes of his past and included things he didn’t mind losing.


End.