FFfAW: A ketchup sandwich

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Maria with the blog, Doodles and Scribbles. Thank you Maria!

 

Danny pushed the stiff door with his shoulder. ‘Come in.’

The hall wallpaper was purple with red swirls, the carpet all flowery, different shades of brown.

‘My mum’s at work,’ he said, dropping his school bag and kicking off his shoes. ‘Want something to eat?’

The house smelled like a pond and a fish and chip shop all stirred together. The carpet had bits where the mesh showed and when I touched the door it felt sticky.

I didn’t like the smell, or how the house made me feel itchy, but I liked Danny, so I followed him into the kitchen.

There was a shelf of bottles and jars, gummed at the lids, cereal packets with faded print, a brown bottle with dribbles down the label.

‘We’ve got two slices of bread,’ he said. ‘Want a ketchup sandwich?’

Danny’s toes poked from his socks. The cat litter tray was all brown with poo.

‘I need to go,’ I said, turning for the door. ‘I’ll see you at school.’

I ran all the way home.

 

Written for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers. See the photo and be inspired. See here to join in and ot read the other tales.

22 thoughts on “FFfAW: A ketchup sandwich”

  3. Ew, what excellent and disgusting description. I could feel the same revulsion growing as we got further into the house. It would be hard to like Danny enough to stay under those conditions!

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    1. Bless Danny. It can be no fun being the ‘smelly kid’ in the class, the one who’s never quite clean, who no one wants to visit at home. Thanks for reading Joy 🙂

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      1. Having just left that comment, I’m reminded that one of my closest friends in high school was horribly messy like that – left all kinds of old food dishes sitting around his room, smelly socks etc. everywhere, took forever to clear off enough space on some surface for me to sit down. I must have really liked him, though, because we’re still good friends to this day. And he’s still a terrible, terrible slob, ew.

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      2. Well, I’m not the tidiest of people, but you can sit on my sofa without much trouble! Saying that, you have to see through these things sometimes and this chap is obviously lovely or you wouldn’t still be friends. As long as you don’t have to share his kitchen … 🙂

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      3. That is a very important distinction. I made the mistake of arranging to stay with him once while traveling. Either I thought he’d have been better as an adult or I’d forgotten — or maybe assumed that living with another person would help – but oh goodness. No. I am never making that mistake again!

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    1. So true! I was best friends with a girl at school who ate ketchup sarnies and often had salt ones as well. I myself remember Mum buying boxes of broken biscuits, which today sounds soooo 1950s. All the types were jumbled up together, covered in powdery crumbs and all tasted of ginger nuts – not my favourite

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      1. At 16, I was entrapped by a violent man who lived with his parents. One day when he was working in his shed, he ordered me to make him a cup of tea. There were no teabags, and his mum told me to give him water with salt and pepper in it. I was terrified, thinking it was a practical joke (she was evil; may she rest in torment), but I took it out to him. Instead of throwing it in my face and hitting me, he calmly drank it. He was used to it.

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      3. I’ve never heard of it since.
        It took a long time to escape, and I had to go into hiding. I was a mess for a long time, but it’s left me with little worse than a few scars on my head and body, and a cluster of unlikely sounding stories.

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      4. Oh, Jane. It makes me so angry that there are men who still feel it’s acceptable to treat women that way, though I know several others who bear scars just like you do. I was lucky enough to avoid scars, though I’ve been thrown around a bit in my time – not, never, ever by my husband I hasten to add, who is the gentlest of men. But all those others – when will it ever change?
        So glad you’re safe now – may you always remain so. Much love to you x

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      5. Your kind thoughts are appreciated, as always.
        It’s the mental scars which heal the slowest, but it’s all gryst to the mill. I love meaningless-sounding sayings like that 🙂
        I should write another post about this toe of abuse – I like to cover it occasionally, as a kind of warning.
        I left the typo because it’s funny. It was meant to be ‘type’ 🙂

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      6. The Toe of Abuse – and what terrible abusive digits they can be 🙂 At least these things are in the past for you and yes, a reminder for women to value themselves, that these behaviours aren’t acceptable or normal is always good.

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