Stories in Short #5 (Daily Prompt)

Daily Prompt: Elicit

Not this time, no, I won’t allow it this time, she said, and slammed the door in my face.

I’d been up to Yuri’s house already this week. The first two times the visit had been clean, smooth, rounded like the heel of a small girl. Not a problem with Yuri, or her kids, who peeked their dirty noses around the door. All I had to do was click my fingers at them and they scattered like rats.

Now today, my third visit, she’s slammed the door in  my face.

I thought we’d warned her of this.

Deliberately stepping on the flowers in Yuri’s garden, I walk around to her window, where she quickly shuts the curtains. I walk to the next and she shuts those too.

I’ll give you one minute, I shout, loud enough so that she can hear through the rag-stone walls and the thin pane of glass.

One minute.

I sit down in the grass and pick at my laces, then undo them, and tighten them again so that the boot is firm against my foot.

Forty six.

From my chest pocket I take out my small scalpel, and from the pouch around my neck, in which I keep all of my most personal effects, I remove the test tube with the orange bung.

Thirty two.

I knock once more on the door, one, two, three. The children are clattering about on the stairs. Their small feet are squeaking on the vinyl. I do hope she puts them away, it’s harder when they are watching me.

Eighteen. Yuri, this is your last chance to make this easy for yourself.

Silence. Only the squeaking feet. A rattle of a toy, the baaing of a sheep in an infant’s fist. Somewhere in the background, upstairs, maybe, a door slams, and the feet stop squeaking, and I know she has locked herself away, kids and all.

Four, three, two –

I sigh, and kick down the door. It’s time for the appointment. Nothing keeps the doctor away.