Little Dude in Rehab (Micro Fiction)

Little Dude in Rehab (Fiction Word Count: 150)

 

…. fir the third time, I’m NOT from Colorado.

I’m from Littleton, WEST VUR-GIN-YUH.

Ugh.

As I was sayin’….

First time in rehab.

Why I done decided to come?

Bunch a reasons.

Like losin’ two more friends from OD.

Then my brutha, Timmy, went up and got his legs all messed in a wreck. He used to drive around town like he was the shit.

In his old gas guzzlin’ red Chevy Suburban. Folks called’em – Timmy Soprano.

 

Now I ain’t a cryin’ kinda guy, but seeing that broke Chevy – just sittin’ there – makes me feel sumptin’.

The wreck really did kill my brother.

Then – leavin’ the post office one day, some Profit show was playing on their counter-top TV.

A number for addiction network came on.

I wrote it down cuz I wanted to help and give it to someone who needed it.

Guess that someone was me.

 

This is to join in with What Pegman Saw for the town of Littleton, West Virginia

To see more entries, or to join in with this flash fiction blog challenge, go here

Also, Rosemary Carlson also wrote about the drug topic (here)

Author’s Notes

I tend to run into folks from West Virginia often. We are only one state over from them and many folks wear West Virginia University Mountaineers gear. My tried and true (overused) joke is something like “Are you from the part that has electricity or the part of West Virginia without it?” I have driven though West Virginia too many times to count – never through Littleton (that I know of) and one year – back in 1991 – I stopped off on a road trip to visit West Virginia University. And the school is in this amazing location – parts of it feel like you are on a cliff. I splurged on an expensive sweatshirt – not because I liked the school – but I think I was in that souvenir-getting kind of mode.

Ok  – back to the prompt photo:

In 2010, the total population for the town of Littleton, West Virginia was 198.

Littleton, WV was described as the “poorest town in the second poorest state.”  In 2015, Dan Majors (here) wrote that this “once-thriving town” is now another city suffering from “hard drugs.”

Sad.

So with that in mind, I wanted to take this opportunity to share the addiction network hotline.

1-800-849-1381 Addiction Network

Earlier this year, The Profit (here) aired this “addiction network” commercial and I thought that was pretty awesome – for so many reasons. So let’s give a shout out to those who make small differences with little actions like this – to give commercial space for this – well it could really save lives. Last month., I listened to a young speaker give a presentation on Human Trafficking (with Polaris info) and a big takeaway for me was how useful hotlines are: “The Hotline receives an average of 100 calls per day. Read stories of survivors who called the hotline for help.”

So let’s all keep that in mind – the little things we can do to help raise awareness could make a huge difference (and thanks again to The Profit).

Oh and when I saw the photo for the prompt, I immediately noticed the the red truck and thought of Tony Soprano (from HBO’s show) and Tony’s 1999 Red Suburban (and connected that into this fiction piece).

Thanks for reading and hope your day is going well.

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