Writing Prompt: The letters were bound with a yellow ribbon.

Morning all. I had a dream where I was being chased by a circus clown on a tricycle. I kept outrunning him and every time I stopped, he’d catch up. And the trike had a squeaky wheel like a bad grocery cart. Oddly enough I had several different dreams, but he kept appearing in all of them. I am going to be thinking about that all day and so I thought I’d share. Now on with the prompt.

Okay I kind of like this one. Kinda spooky and I suspect someone is going to die soon. But lots of places for a horror/mystery to go. Fun stuff. I blame the clown.

Thursday, April 4^th: The letters were bound with a yellow ribbon.

The letters were bund with a yellow ribbon.  I pulled them out of the box gently.  The edges of the envelopes were starting to crumble a little.  I would have left them in the box as it provided some stability, but the box itself was wedged hard under the stairs.  It would take force to remove it and I didn’t want to risk the letters getting damaged in the process. 

I lifted them carefully and walked them across the room to place them on the folding table where many of the other treasures we found in the hidden recesses of the house were gathered.  They were from multiple years, each left behind by a previous occupant.  The house was built as a grand home in the late seventeen hundreds but soon after being built, the owners ran into hard times and started taking in lodgers.

Subsequent owners did the same right up until the building fell out of use in the 1980s.  Then it stood empty, slowly falling into disrepair until we bought it.  Tose who lived here in the past were a mix of people but a large number of them left at least  little something of themselves behind.  I had a list of those recorded as lodgers under various owners and already wondered if I would be able to match this stack of letters with a previous tenant. Some of the items I could, others I couldn’t.

Letters lifted to safety I returned for the box.  Once I managed to get it ut, I would put the letters back inside. I crouched down   the box.  I tugged.  It shifted slightly.  It was really wedged in there.  I shifted my grip and tugged again.  This time it didn’t budge.  I leaned back hoping to use my body weight as leverage.  It didn’t even shift.  I heard movement at the top of the stairs. 

“Tom,” I called.  “Could you help me?  This is really stuck.”

I let go of the box and stepped away, looking up. I blinked.  There was no one at the top of the stairs.  I frowned.  I could have sworn I heard someone.  “Tom?” I called.

I heard footsteps approaching the door and Tom stuck his head around the edge.  I guessed he had gone back into the kitchen for something.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he said.

“I need help getting this box unstuck.”

“Oh sure,” he said.  “By the way the delivery van just pulled up.”

“My tiles,” I said.  I left the box where it was and hurried up the stairs past Tom.  “Just put the box on the table when you have it loose.  I think it is blocking access to one of the shut off valves Mike needs to reach when he comes in the morning.”