Morning all and Happy Monday. I hope you had a great weekend. Even though it is technically the fifth and the new year is already underway, it never feels really like the new year until the first Monday. Or maybe it is just that I really get started on the first Monday. Regardless, the dust of the old year has been shaken off and a bright new week stretches before us. Let’s see what the first writing prompt of the week holds. Timers set for fifteen minutes and let’s get going.
That maybe a nosy neighbor but I think something hinky is going on in the house of cinnamon rolls.
Monday, January 5th: The table was dusted with flour.
The table was dusted with flour. Bowls were in the sink and freshly iced cinnamon buns were still in the baking pan. They were warm enough that some of the glaze went translucent in spots, melting into the hot rolls a little.
The scent was glorious. By my side my fingers twitched wanting to reach for the still hot cinnamon rolls. I resisted but it was difficult. I looked around. No one was in sight. Part of my said that was the perfect time to take a cinnamon roll and run.
It was the childish part of me and I ignored it, moving away from the pan and looking around. “Hello?” I called. I moved away from the pan but not too far from the back door I used to enter the kitchen. I hadn’t been invited and didn’t like to intrude, but I was concerned.
“The back door was open and…” I thought about the disarray of the back yard. Its usual state wasn’t something that I regularly checked. I only noticed the disarray because the back door was flapping in the wind and banging against the door frame. For all I knew the backyard was always a mess. My back yard may have butted up against theirs, but I rarely paid attention to what was beyond my back fence. If the door hadn’t been banging for the last two hours, I wouldn’t have bothered.
“I was worried,” I concluded, leaving off thoughts about the mess in the yard.
There was no response. I looked back to the oven. The baking pan full of cinnamon rolls was resting on a rack on the stove top. The oven was off at least. I looked away wondering if someone had to leave in a hurry for some strange reason and the back door was simply not secured.
Hearing no response, I backed out of the house and into the backyard again. The backyard looked as though it had been through some sort of localized tornado. The picnic table was upended and chairs were scattered.
‘Looks almost like a fight more than a tornado, I thought, noticing the overturned metal bowl they used as a fire pit. It was dented on one side. I frowned and walked around the side of the house to peer into the driveway. If the cars were gone, I would know they just left in a hurry.
I looked in the drive. The cars were gone. I nodded. In someways, I felt relieved. I walked back to the back door and pushed it shut so that it latched and was not flying in the wind. I didn’t lock anything as I didn’t know if there was a reason it was left unlocked.
While relieved I didn’t find an emergency in progress, I was still a little nervous and I let my shirt sleeve cover my hand, not leaving my fingerprints on anything. I was less worried about the police and more worried that someone would realize how much I wanted to steal the cinnamon rolls.
I would have left the door as it was, the banging easily ignored now that I knew what it was, but a storm was blowing in. There was no point in my neighbors coming back to find their screen door ripped off in a windstorm after they went to deal with another emergency. It was clear they left in a hurry. I wrapped my arms around myself and hurried back to my house. Once back inside I looked back through my kitchen window as I put on the kettle for some tea. I was surprised to see movement inside the house.
Ten til Midnight 