Rule Thirty-Six

“I suppose this could be considered my fault,” she thought as she dialed the number to call in sick for work. The phone rang while she roughly wiped her hands down the sides of her pants, desperately trying to clean off the sticky substance that coated them.

She cleared her throat when her boss’ voice chimed through the speaker. “Hi, yeah, Mark? I can’t come in today,” she shifted her voice to a sickly groan. “Yep, don’t feel well at all. Sorry about that,” she rushed out, hanging up quickly.

“Yeah, this is definitely my fault,” she thought again, looking up to the mess in front of her. She had forgotten rule number thirty-six. She could never remember rule thirty-six. Her grandmother would often reprimand her for it, catching her right before a mistake.

“How many times must I remind you that you cannot feed Henry sugar!” the older woman’s voice echoed through her head.

Although Henry lay dead at her feet, she couldn’t say she felt bad about it. The good-for-nothing ogre did nothing but lie around and groan, his three eyes always following her every move. She had no idea why her grandmother was so insistent on keeping him around.

She did, however, feel a small pang of regret as she soon realized she had to clean the innards that were covering the walls of her dining room and the cookie crumbs that littered the ground. If only her grandmother had also reminded her about the last part of rule thirty-six.

Sugar had the tendency to make Henry explode. She picked up a mop.

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