The past year or so I have taken to writing some flash fiction pieces. I love looking at a photograph and coming up with a backstory and a future space in which it lives and breathes. I like it also because it allows me to cut back (a bit) on my digressions. I love to digress but flash fiction keeps one tidy. I believe we should always try to push ourselves into a space of discomfort. It helps to ground one and keep oneself ready to expand one’s consciousness. Maybe. I may be making too much of it. Either way, I like visualizing and telling a tale. Well, now I have one for you to all help me figure out.

When I moved out to California I kept my New York house. And that was a smart thing to do seeing that I came back. In that time, I rented out my house to two different sets of renters. Each interesting in their own way. And, this story to come may apply to one or both or none.

When we came back we had a lot of unpacking to do. It took me a few days to notice a very peculiar thing. There was a very square cut out in my lower blind in the kitchen. I looked at it and it was most definitely cut. It wasn’t chewed on. It wasn’t caught on something. It was purposefully cut.

I stared through the blind and my mind starting churning; stories swirling inside my head. But I had a lot of unpacking to do and pushed it to the side of my mind for a few days. Then I was downstairs and noticed that another set of blinds had another square shape cut out.  I scrunched my forehead. Or at least it felt like I had. I wondered and wondered. Then I came up with a story. I imagined a scared, lonely housewife married to a banker who worked in the city and who tended to come home rather late. She had two kids that kept her busy but also kept her filled with anxieties. I imagined that she created a hole in the blinds in order to look out onto the world without the world being able to look upon her.  I imagined her plotting an escape by monitoring the timing of the cars and sanitation trucks. I imagined a lot more. But I will never know.