New Flash Fiction: Rainbow Man

Here's our latest flash fiction contribution - it's by Christine Purcell, who descibes herself as a coffee aficionado and Scrabble demon. Her first novel The Emerald Key is due out this year (Ticonderoga Publications). Her shorter works have appeared in White Cat Magazine, the Fem-Fangs Anthology (Pill Hill Press), House of Horror, Orbis Quarterly International Literary Journal, Metro Baby, ESC! Magazine, The Copperfield Review, The Loch Raven Review, Third Reader and other venues.

Rainbow Man

He doesn’t want to get caught inside the Anderson’s house. He presses his lips to the cotton dress and sucks the color from the mossy-green fabric, then moves on to the lichen-flavored pink polka dots. 

The children call him Rainbow Man. Sometimes they find him inside the Nowhere Shed, where he sleeps, among piles of colorless beer glass and achromatic garden tools. They throw rocks and chant: “Hide your toys and hide your eyes or Rainbow Man will suck you dry.”
He can’t help himself. He takes a book from her nightstand, licks the cover, and swirls the umami blend in his mouth. Delicious, but he craves something richer.

A thud comes from the next room and his heart races. No one is supposed to be home.  The exit is down the hall, past the sound. He tiptoes. When he reaches the bathroom, the door is open. She is on the floor, a slash along her wrist, filet mignon red pouring out.

He wishes he were someone else, someone who would save her.