On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

I’d love to have you as a subscriber to the weekly free story. You can subscribe via email here. Unsubscribe any time, from the link in every issue.

Here's story 212, of 240 so far.

Old Enough

The mother and father smiled at their son, but the child didn’t notice.

He was too engrossed in his drawing, which apparently was of the whole family: the boy himself, the man, the woman, the dog, and the cat. The animals in question both sat nearby, the dog asleep and the cat seeming to watch the boy’s art taking shape.

“He asked about his grandpa visiting again,” the mother said, out of earshot of the boy, and the father sighed.

“Well, we can do that,” he replied, his tone reasonable to anyone else, but his wife could hear the note of tension.

“Would you invite your dad back here?” she asked, knowing that they were both thinking about the last such visit. It had been a mixed success. Parenting had changed a great deal between the prior and current generations, after all. That was always the case. But the modern world added some points of contention.

“We could,” her husband replied. “As long as he’s willing to just let us raise our child the way we want to. I can talk him round.”

The mother nodded, keeping back the words that wouldn’t help, and the ones that didn’t need to be said. They watched their son in silence for another couple of minutes, until the father spoke again.

“I called him the other day, actually,” he said. “Just to catch up. He was asking after his grandson. About school and friends. I felt like he was needling me.”

His wife put her hand on his arm. “You shouldn’t read too much into it,” she said. “He just wants the best for everyone. It’s hard for him to understand.”

The father nodded, smiling at his son when the child looked up. A tiny version of his wife’s features, though male in form, and so much of the man’s own personality. The ideal scenario, he privately thought.

“There was something else, though,” the mother said, and her husband immediately felt himself tensing up again. The note of reluctance in her voice was familiar, and he knew before she spoke again that his own father had contacted her too. The question was about what. He willed himself not to lose his temper.

“Your dad sent a message this morning,” the mother said, lowering her voice further without realising she was doing so. “He was asking if he could get a phone for him, just so they could do video calls without having to arrange it through us. He said it was a normal thing these days. He wanted to pay for it all.”

The father rubbed his own temple, reminding himself for the hundredth time that his dad only wanted what was best for his grandchild, as he saw it. He wasn’t trying to interfere; not really.

“Just because most kids have phones at his age doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, or healthy,” the father said. Again, his wife’s hand was on his arm.

“We agree on that,” she said evenly. “I don’t want it for him either. He’s too young. The internet, and everything that’s on it… it’s probably not as bad for a boy, but still. I just wanted to mention it to you before I tell your father that we’d prefer to keep things the way they are for now.”

“I hate when he makes me feel like a bad parent, just because he doesn’t understand that things have changed a lot,” the father replied. “Not just with technology. Socially, too. It’s hardly the same world he grew up in. Kids grow up far too quickly, especially when they’re surrounded by—”

“I know, and I agree with you,” the mother said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s not worry about it. Look at him. He’s a happy and healthy little boy. That’s the most we can ask for.”

More silence, and then the father walked over to his son and laid his hand on the boy’s head while the mother looked on. The boy was still engrossed in his drawing, and it seemed that he had added another figure to the scene. When asked, he of course said it was his grandpa.

That evening, the mother and the father both put the boy to bed together, reading a book each, and then taking turns to kiss his forehead and tell him to sleep well. The mother stepped out into the hall, and the father closed the bedroom door gently. After a moment, the woman spoke.

“He’ll have to deal with the world sometime,” she said. “Not yet, but sometime.” The father looked at her, then back at the boy’s bedroom door, before walking to the bookshelf at the opposite side of the hallway.

He laid his hand flat on the small open area of the second shelf where there were no books, and after a moment, there was a sound. The bookshelf vanished, revealing the door that led back to the real house, beyond the confines of the environment simulator where the boy had spent virtually the entirety of the four years of his life so far.

“When he’s old enough,” the man replied.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

Find Out More

I'd love to hear any feedback or other thoughts; you can find my contact info here.

I encourage you to share this story with anyone you think would enjoy it. If you’d like to receive a tale like this via email every week, you can sign up to receive them here.

Thanks for reading.