Flash fiction By Emma Phillips

Run

Run, run, as fast as you can. Everyone is out to get you; they tried to bake the perfect boy, but you couldn’t fill that outline. You’re air, like cotton candy. They sprinkled you with sugar, tried to keep you sweet, never understood why you couldn’t keep your feet still. Gingerbread Ma and Gingerbread Pa chased you in and out of rooms, called the experts in to redefine your boundaries.

Run, run, as fast as you can. Count your raisin buttons when they file for divorce. It seems a biscuit baby didn’t do the job. Your Ma carries emptiness like others carry laundry. Your Pa is a cliché with wandering eyes. He’s the reason they fixed yours to only look ahead. Your Ma told your Pa not to ice your ears. She didn’t want you to notice the wolf-snap of his words when he asked her “Is he mine?”

Run, run, as fast as you can. Keep your brittle head up. Just as long as you keep moving, they can’t dunk your limbs into their tea and fish you out like a baptism. Your Ma was a slither of lightning once too. Knocked your Pa flat with her milk-white legs.

Run, run, as fast as you can. They piped you a smile to never fade. Flash it at the fox and dash for its tail. You are the sum of your parts. Make your music. Sing your songs. Other gingerbread boys fit the cookie cutter better. But you have a secret weapon. Beneath that oven-tanned skin, beats a doughy heart. Run, run as fast as you can. Theirs is a game you can never win. Freedom is movement; go, go, go. Shift that gingerbread ass.