Flash Fiction Friday (Cycle 47) Bright Eyes

Flash Fiction Friday Prompt-Look at the photo, look into the child’s eyes. Some children are lost before they have even started living. Some children are a throw-away commodity like a burger box that’s left to blow down the street in the wind and rain.
Genre – open
Length – 700 words
Topic – look at the photo, look into the child’s eyes.
Deadline – Wednesday September 7th at Midnight EST. The stories post will go up Thursday morning.

(Author's note: This is a true story.)

After working my part-time pizza delivery job for a little over six months, I had come close to hating the aroma drifting out of the tightly packed insulated carrying bags located on the backseat of my car. Even worse, while I had been on the clock making deliveries for close to four hours since getting off work from my full time job I had less than twenty dollars in tips to show for my efforts, not really enough to cover the cost of the gas I had used driving around.

The section of town I found myself driving through offered no hope that I would hit the jackpot with a customer serving up an above average tip. The streets were lined with the type of cheap but rundown houses people reside in when their lives have not lived up to the popular but largely delusional belief Americans cling to about the country being a land of boundless opportunity. My ultimate destination was especially bad with huge patches of paint crumbling from rotten wood walls and makeshift cardboard patches covering busted windows.

Out of all the months of playing delivery boy I had never felt nervous walking up to a door, but this time the hairs on the back of my neck were standing straight up, namely from the odd chemical odor I could tell was coming from the house. After learning the doorbell did not work, I respectfully knocked on the door several times trying to get the attention of those inside. Just when I breathed a sigh of relief at the lack of a response and was about to turn around and leave the door opened and I was greeted by the cutest African-American girl whom I guessed was about six years-old, the same age as my own daughter at that time.

“Did you bring the pizza?” She asked with a dazzling smile and bright eyes that could have cheered up the dead, and given the person that showed up a minute later I believe that was the case. The adult male that now stood in the doorway looked like a real-life version of an undead zombie. While African-American, his skin had a visible gray pallor and was so loose it appeared to be struggling to stay attached to his hideously underweight frame. Adding to the effect, his soulless eyes reminded me of a clothing store mannequin.

“Sir, I have the pizza you ordered.” I said after several seconds of watching the zombie standing in the doorway saying nothing.

Some semblance of sentience appeared briefly after that with him mumbling, “Oh yeah, I’ll go find some money.”

After he disappeared back inside, I was left looking at the little girl and dealing with the overpowering chemical stench now pouring out of the house. She was now sitting on the floor with crayons and a coloring book obviously to the smell that was almost making me gag.

“How much money do you need?” She asked looking at me with innocent eyes that made me more uncomfortable than the chemical smell.

“About eight-dollars,” I replied absentmindedly, which caused her to flip the coloring book to a blank page and begin drawing intently. It took several minutes, which was no problem since the zombie had yet to return, but she eventually showed me her work. It was a crude drawing of various dollar bills and coins very roughly adding up to eight dollars.

“Do you like it? I colored all the money, even the coins.” She said visibly proud of her efforts.

“Yeah sweetie, it’s perfect.” I said feeling a growing sense of dread. Given what I was seeing and smelled I was worried that zombie dude was not going to show up and that the pizza was suppose to be her dinner. Feeling both disgusted at the adults in that precious girl's life and powerless to do anything about it I just gave her the pizza free of charge, walked back to my car, and drove away.

***

About a month later, I made a delivery to a different house in the same neighborhood. On the way back out I rode by that house and saw that it had burned completely to the ground leaving nothing but the foundation.