Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview
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79
"Don't tell Mom and Dad," he said as he washed my face and arms with the garden hose. "Just tell 'em you had an accident on your bike."
"Remember what I told you about General Stonewall Jackson." He was a hero to my brother, and by association, a hero to me. The association was made closer by the fact that one of our distant cousins up north in Virginia was supposed to be a distant relative of the General.
"Never give 'em the high ground" was the last thing my brother said before he sped off on my bike. I was beginning to get confused.
What he said — and partly the way he said it — made me feel strong inside. But it somehow didn't sit well with what they said in church or around the dinner table. It felt like butterflies in my belly when I imagined all those ancient faces staring down into the arena to see what I'd do or think or feel next.
First published in Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Volume
#36, October-December 2011.