Ficlets

Flat Boyfriend

I sent the photo in, so I guess it is kind of my fault.

My Flat Boyfriend™ had been in the house for less than a week when I started noticing.

It watched all the time, blank eyes and stretched smile. A paper surveillance in dust and daylight, just a dark silhouette once the lights went out.

At night, I could swear I heard corrugated cardboard crackling in the kitchen and when I got up in the morning, it was on just a slightly slightly different angle to the day before. I’d lean it against the bench with a cup of tea (black, two sugars – your favourite) beside it, balance my old maroon beret on the cardboard hair and joke that you had been promoted, but no mirth ever lit the low-sheen expression.

I scared myself to death imagining it moving around the kitchen, touching its dry, flat hands to places you knew and loved… touching me… and every morning, I swear it had shifted.

I hacked it into pieces with my sewing scissors.

I never thought it would affect you.

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