Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Nesting Dolls

he'd seen it somewhere, damn it, somewhere...

Then he had it, from all those years ago. The girls' locker room, the hole in the wall, the broom closet. Sister Margaret. She'd had just this key hanging around her neck; he'd seen it clearly as she pinched his ear and got her own eyeful. For the few seconds she'd watched the two girls at play, she'd clutched this key inside a muscled fist, her lips moving soundlessly: this key, with the crossed hands forming the ring through which the simple loop of twine passed. There was no mistaking it.

As he looked at it now, he suddenly realized it wasn't a key after all. It had a tiny, was that a hinge along the shaft? He removed it from the box, dug with a fingernail at the little bolt or hinge or whatever it was. The "key" sprung open, revealing a narrow hollow chamber.

And rolled up inside the little tube was a tiny white cylinder of paper.

5 comments:

Kate Lord Brown said...

Oooh ...

Anonymous said...

Heh. I'm trying to kill the rapid proliferation of freaking keys; henceforth I will turn every new key into something else. :)

Rowena said...

Ah. But a key is always something else, isn't it?

Nicely done.

Anonymous said...

Rowena: not necessarily -- sometimes a key is just, well, a key!

Rowena said...

LOL.

Not in this story.