Morva House Fiction: "Strange Window"

Author:Morva Shepley
Title: Strange Window
Word Count: 243



Seems like that old house has been there forever. The paint is peeling. No one thinks to ask who painted it in the first place, or who it was that put the drapes there in the windows. Someone must have wanted to keep the sun out, once upon a time, or to stop people looking in.



Those are old curtains, stained. In one window, there's a blanket or sheet or something as well as a curtain, like someone became too poor to care about making it look nice and just hung an old rag there. That's what you'd think, but it's not like we've ever seen any one about the place.



In that same small window, though, the curtain is propped open with a newspaper. It's been there for years, forever, like the curtains and the peeling paint, that newspaper, but it hasn't yellowed with age. That newspaper is white. It doesn't look old at all.



The thing is, you can't see the hand that's holding it. There isn't a face, either, looking out. Maybe they didn't mean to look out, though. Whoever it was might have just wanted to let the sunlight in on something, long ago.



It's always looked like that, the old house over there.



Reflected in the glass, you see a hill with a huge old oak tree standing on the top of it. It's strange. You'd think you'd see, instead, the houses on this side of the street.

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"Strange Window" copyright by Morva Shepley 2008
http://morvahouse.blogspot.com