Come Apart

Georgie was seven when he decided to disappear.

He’d told his friend Tommy at school that he was going to do it one day, just up and come apart and float away, never to be seen again.

Tommy, always serious, had looked at him with his beady, red-rimmed eyes and had simply stated, “That’s impossible. People can’t just float away,” and had gone back to digging. The hole Tommy and Georgie had been working on was slow work, especially since they’d carried the dirt away in their pockets, not wanting to leave a mound for a teacher to find, but Tommy said they’d eventually dig a tunnel out of the schoolyard and they’d escape forever.

Georgie had rubbed his dirt-stained jeans and said, “We could spearmint.”

It Happened

This story is by Sarah Gribble and was part of our 2017 Winter Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here. I count to calm myself as I pick at a fray on the faded red chair: three, two, one. My nails are ugly, jagged from months of worried chewing. It’s too…

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