matchstick EXECUTIONER

His mother always left that large bottom drawer of her dresser completely empty. He couldn’t leave anything in it, but she didn’t mind him in there otherwise. It was a popular hideout for games of Hide & Seek with his father, other times it was just him and a submarine in the depths of the ocean, a spaceship exploring the far reaches from home, or a racecar that was so fast he could be anywhere he wanted just as fast as he could think of it.

One morning, staring out from the cockpit of his spaceship, it occurred to him how very dark space was. Until then he’d never really thought much of it. Maybe because the darkness had never scared him like he heard it did other kids. No, he was quite comfortable. It made him feel safe. Though, the longer he stayed there the more it hurt his eyes when his mother called him to lunch.

He loved s’mores on those campouts with his father. He’d put the graham cracker loaded with chocolate on a rock near the heat of the fire so that when it was smashed together with the roasted marshmallow everything just oozed into one gloppy mess, generally dripping onto his lap.

But really he would have been as happy with only the mallows. There was always an extra bag that would last through the night long after the chocolate and grahams were gone. They’d sit for hours at the fireside, roasting mallow after mallow as papa told elaborate ghost stories, ever so often breaking out into his low, familiar laugh as his boy’s wide-eyed stare resulted in a forgotten marshmallow bursting into flames over the fire.