News & Features » December 2014 » “Peter and the Wolves” by Rion Amilcar Scott

“Peter and the Wolves” by Rion Amilcar Scott

Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by our best-selling gift book for parents, Go the Fuck to Sleep, Terrible Twosdays joins the roster of our other online short fiction series. Unlike Mondays Are Murder and Thursdaze, we’re looking for stories with a light and mischievous feel, all about the day-to-day challenges of parenting. As with our other flash fiction series, stories must not exceed 750 words.

This week, Rion Amilcar Scott finds a father and son in an interesting situation.

Peter and the Wolves
by Rion Amilcar Scott
Ten

The tractor-trailer lay dead, an overturned behemoth in the roadside brush, its refrigerated guts split open and littering the highway with frozen wolf carcasses. I laughed and pointed, their wolf legs sticking up in the air, the whole highway a smoky game of jacks. My father yawped, a low gruff tone grinding through his knotted beard. That’s when I noticed the bloody white sheet draped over a lumpy mass on the ground. My father tensed his jaw and tightened his left hand on the leather of the steering wheel. With the open palm of his heavy right hand, he tapped the back of my head, jerking me forward. My father barked: Peter, if you believe that man’s life is some sort of laughing matter—one of your little jokes—then we have a lot to talk about when we get home.

***

RION AMILCAR SCOTT has contributed to PANK, Fiction International, The Rumpus, and Confrontation, among others. Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, he earned an MFA at George Mason University and presently teaches English at Bowie State University.

***

Do you have a story you’d like us to consider for online publication in the Terrible Twosdays flash fiction series? Here are the submission terms and guidelines:

—We are not offering payment, and are asking for first digital rights. The rights to the story revert to the author immediately upon publication.
—Your story should focus on the challenges of parenting. Ideally, stories should be about children aged 0 to 5, but any age (up to early teens) is acceptable. Stories may be fiction or nonfiction.
—Include the child’s age at the time of the story next to your byline.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.

Posted: Dec 9, 2014

Category: Original Fiction, Terrible Twosdays | Tags: age ten, fiction, flash fiction, Go the Fuck to Sleep, GTFTS, Peter and the Wolves, Rion Amilcar Scott, short fiction, ten, Terrible Twosdays