Bread Crumbs

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Reimagining Hansel and Gretel in Microfiction:  Three microfiction pieces submitted to a Fractured Lit competition using the prompt "bread crumbs" 

Escape

     Each breadcrumb was manna to our hungry eyes. Our own shadows pushed us onward; any one might be the enemy close behind.

     We had walked right into their illusion, drawn like children to sweets. 

     “Go back!” I had screamed. “It's a trap!” 

     Too late. Gloved fingers reached, silver instruments tormented, sharp minds probed, and our silence slipped into spoken secrets. We were powerless against those who could lure us into their hidden stronghold in the woods. 

     And was this escape just another mind trick? we wondered, as the crumbs marking our way turned to drops of blood in the snow. 



Thanks, but No Thanks

     Before learning to burn bridges, I did Thanksgiving at my Dad’s. 

     “A plump turkey just for you, Gretta,” my stepmom crooned.

     It’s plumper than I ever was, I thought, remembering Thanksgivings with not much more than crumbs to eat. 

     “You still seeing that foreigner?” began the agonizing dinner talk.

     “You mean my boyfriend?”

     “He hasn’t gotten you pregnant, has he? – well,” she continued defensively, “you’ve put on some weight.”

     “I hope so, seeing as you never fed me,” I retorted. Understanding Hans’s refusal to come, I snatched a bun and left, trailing crumbs for the birds. 

     I’m never going back.

They Used to Give Us Cake

     They used to give us cake. 

     That was before the mean lady came. Now they only give us bread, without butter.

     When my brother and I first came, we laughed and played with the others. Now, children were mysteriously missing, and I was afraid one of us was next. 

     “They put kids in the woods overnight when there’s nobody to send money,” whispered the rumors in hushed children’s voices. “They leave them there to starve!”

     When the night wind rattled and my stomach grumbled, that’s when I believed the rumors. 

     They once gave us cake… now they give us death. 





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