The Clothes Dryer

There was once a little boy who liked getting dirty. He would spend all the day out in the sun, rolling around the wet grass and getting grass stains all over his pajamas. His mother, who was not particularly cruel, but ran ship of the house, had to care for his three other younger siblings. He made her life completely miserable, by climbing trees, and doing all the nasty things that little boys would do. This included eating mangoes from these trees and letting the yellow, sticky juice stain his hands, his face and his fingers. To avoid getting punished for his ways, he would always wipe them clean on his pajamas' pant legs. He would run home at the strike of 6 pm, when his mother would ring the dinner bell. His family was accustomed to running home when the dinner bell rang. One day, his mother was particularly tired and saw him running home covered in mud, grass stains and the various dirt that stuck to him like second skin. She marched up to him halfway down the porch steps and grabbed him by his ear. He yowled and yelped and kicked all the way as she dragged him up for a bath. But because he was being particularly stubborn, his mother stuck him in the washing machine for thirty long minutes. Right when he was hiccuping bubbles, and sputtering soap, his mother took him out of the wash into the dryer. She stuffed him in amidst his protests and watched him with a satisfied smirk, as he spun around and around like a lost balloon, spiraling out after a long day traipsing to the sun. And when he was done, his clothes, like all clothes are customary of doing, began to shrink. It restricted him first in the midsection, at first too tight to breathe. When it began to cut against skin, the progression ran faster until it became a solid blade that cut against him. Grinding against bone and flashing. Next to be severed was his head, it lolled against the bone like a giant cherry tootsie-pop. His hands and feet too, tumbled alongside his lollipop head, like waving children.