Flash Fiction / Nonfiction / Random Tales

Flash Nonfiction: Welcome to Kiddy Jail

Tannille's avatarPosted by
PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Other stories featuring the prompt can be found here.

When I was in school, kids were free-range. Most of us came and went as we pleased… to a degree. We faced consequences for wagging and playing “out of bounds”. No fences required. A psychological jail. Some kids snuck to the far end of the oval for a smoko, out of sight.

After school hours, kids acted their revenge. The art of tagging.

A few years after we did our time, my bestie took me for a drive. New fencing engulfed our former high school.

“Are the fences to keep the little shits out or to lock the shits in?”

Some questions have no answer.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Story Notes

True story! I had just returned from studying in the US. Turned my back for a year only to find fencing around my old high school. How rude. So glad the fences happened after my time. Most schools, if not all schools, have fencing now. Apparently, vandalism ruined it for the next generations. There were very few hits to the schools I attended.

I used to enjoy wandering the school after hours. The eerie vibe left an impression on me and occasionally The Muse runs wild with a story. Definitely, a bygone era where children roamed. Just be home before dark

Flash Nonfiction: Baywatch

43 comments

  1. Change does come as a shock.
    Fences have come up in some places, while fences have disappeared in others over time.
    Time does play its tricks.

    P.S- In my story, the fence has disappeared 🙂

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  5. I fear the answer is both. At my son’s school there are still no fences / access control, but I heard them talking about it after one of the recent shootings down south. It’s a sad world when kids are afraid to be free.

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  9. Your story is fresh, interesting. Love the final line. Good way to leave it. I have the same recollection growing up in the US, kids used to roam. There’s still some happening in my neighborhood actually they all roam to the house behind us…not liking it as much as an adult! Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Roaming is what we did best. There wasn’t the internet to babysit back then. Shopping centres (malls) were teenage meeting places. It’s funny how our attitude changes as we grow up.

      Thanks, C!

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  10. Love it, Tannille. There were elements of it that were familiar and others not. I don’t recall my mother saying to us that we had to be home by sunset, which seemed to be so common at the time. I used to go walking in the bush next to our place for hours and I was 9 years old. No mobile phones back then and kids did occasionally get lost in the bush. I don’t recall my mother being concerned. At family gatherings, the idea was that kids were to be not seen and not heard and we’d do the rounds of the adults collecting money and head up to the milk bar up the street and retire to the backyard feasting or having illicit explorations under the house. Such a good era.

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    1. I actually think I home time was 5:30, but most of my friends had until dark. Country kids had more freedom than city kids. I can relate to your disappearing into the bush and and the kids wandering and playing while the adults talked and did adults things. I loved the independence!

      Thanks,R.

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  11. How well I remember the freedom of my growing-up days! If we wanted a ball game after we changed from “school clothes” to “play clothes,” we’d run back to the school yard and play 500, or Work-Up. There were no fences to keep us out. We knew to be home when the streetlights went on. Those were some good old days 🙂

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    1. Such freedom! My life style growing up in a country town. I was 12 when we moved to the city. My city friends weren’t as free. They rather be driven places by the parent taxi and didn’t overly wander.

      Thanks, L.

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  15. It’s been years now, but the first big bad thing I noticed them doing to the schools was covering most of the windows. Trying to learn in the dark, figuratively and literally, is bad enough, but ad toxic flourescent lighting and you’ve got a pretty grim learning environment. The school shootings have fenced everyone in, but no matter how many fences, those f*ckers keep finding a way in with their automatic weapons 😦

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    1. I don’t think schools cover windows here. Some schools look like mini universities now. US schools sound horrible. The shootings are horrific. No one needs automatic weapons. Fences wont keep em out. A parental nightmare.

      Thanks, L.

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  17. I love ‘free-range’ kids. Great description. Seeing the fence around your old school would have been a sock, as it seems the freedom you’d experienced there was special to you. I also really like the voice you’ve used here. Captures the feelings very well.

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    1. It was a shock. At the time most schools didn’t have fences, so it wasn’t on our radar. We graduated about four years earlier. End of an era. More changes have been down. I hardly recognise the campus now, two decades on, with the renovations.

      Thanks, M.

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  18. I do remember roaming the neighborhood freely until dark. Kids can’t do that any longer. Sadly, it’s not safe full stop. Fences are a requirement as well and you’re right it’s probably more about vandalism. Another sad fact. Well done on the story, T!

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  19. Ha! Free-range kids! I remember those days well and now I worry about my grandkids in school during very different and dangerous times. They are good kids. So are most of the kids who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I, for one, vote for keeping the shits out!

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