lullaby
Being a single parent had taught Aisha the true meaning of exhaustion. Fatigue haunted her like a shameful memory. She wasn’t a fool, she hadn’t expected solo parenting to be a walk in the park, but nothing could have prepared her for the sleepless nights, or for the choking malaise that followed them like a bad hangover.
When Aiden awoke in the night—as he still did most nights—she would pad into his room on slippered feet, running mostly on autopilot, and slip into the recliner next to his crib with the lullaby already falling from her lips.
So it had been last night.
Whispered echoes of a refrain rang in her troubled mind. Hush little baby, don’t say a word…
How many times had she sung those words? How many times had she wished for him to hush, to not say a word? For silence—sweet silence… just enough to get some sleep.
Such were the thoughts and recriminations roiling through her sluggish, slumbering mind when she finally noticed it: the silence. Heavy and uncanny.
She snapped awake in an instant and found herself in the recliner, where she had presumably fallen asleep mid-song. She looked over at Aiden’s crib and was somehow not surprised to find it empty.
Her baby—her precious Aiden—was gone…
Her baby was gone!
She was about to rise when two powerful hands grabbed her from behind and yanked her back. She felt a gloved hand slip over her mouth while another covered her eyes.
She screamed but the sound was muffled into silence.
Then, a song. Strange words accompanied by a familiar tune. She had thought that no sound could be worse than the terrible silence that had greeted her upon waking. But she was wrong.
“Now, hush little baby, don’t say a word. I stole your infant, he isn’t my first. But you will get him back you see; in one piece… two pieces… and a third piece makes three!”
Whew! What a nasty piece of business that was, huh?
’s prompt took in me a dark direction today (you can read his story here). But, hey, I ain’t complain’!I’ve actually been sitting on the core idea of this story for a while—that of a parent waking up to find their child missing. At the time, it seemed like the worst sound I could imagine a parent ever hearing.
Now I’m not so sure.
Okay… well.
Sleep tight tonight, friends!
Hope you enjoyed the show.
c.d.
If you’re still in the reading mood, might I suggest these dread-filled drabbles you may have missed:
As a mother…this tale was too haunting for me.