Morning all and Happy Friday. Are you ready for the last prompt of the work week? Fabulous, then let’s get started. Timers set to fifteen minutes please and off we go.
Oh I think Steve is doing something naughty. Not sure what. It may be embezzlement from the company or it may be an illegal sideline. I’ll need to think about that but this could be a fun one to play with.
Friday, October 9th: It was an acrid scent.
It was an acrid scent. There was no scent of smoke but the scent made me look around for evidence of a fire. It was that sort of scent that lingers in the back of the throat after a fire has finished staining the air. Yet there was no evidence of fire. There was no evidence of anything out of place.
I slowly moved around the apartment.
Something was wrong. It wasn’t just the scent. There was a feel as though something had been moved subtly off kilter. Something was out of place. I knew I was somewhat sensitive to the placement of the elements in my world. It was something I tried to keep to myself as others never seemed to mind it.
In my house growing up noticing the subtle shifts of things was a way to anticipate the moods of the rest of the family. There were many loud and occasionally violent members of my large multi-generational family and their moods were often mercurial. Paying attention to the little details made certain I could anticipate the shifts in the emotional winds. It let me know when my absence would be best or if it would cause less damage to be silently but visibly present.
Here the scent was still acrid with no source but I knew something was off. Steve would call it paranoia, but I knew. I slowly moved through each room. I looked to the book shelf and saw one of the books was out of alignment. Steve tended to make certain all the books had their spines in perfect alignment. He might not notice the lack of alignment if he was doing something but once he spent time in the room he would have to shift them back so it looked neat again.
I moved to the bookshelf and looked at the book out of alignment. It was pushed just a quarter of an inch further back than the main line of books. There was no title on the spine it was just green linen on the cover. Curious, I pulled the book out. The book felt lighter than it should have. There was not title on the cover and when I opened it I found it was hollowed out. Inside I found a bank book.
I frowned. Steve had a home office. It made no sense for him to hide a bank book in the living room book case. I flipped open the bank book, more curious than guilty. I looked over the carefully written numbers. My eyes widened at the sums. I looked at the dates and made some quick calculations in my head. I made a note of the last entry, today’s date. I closed the bank book and put it back. There was nothing else in the hidden cache and I carefully put the book back on the shelf. I thought about straightening the line of books but thought it might look suspicious so I pushed it back a little into the position I found it.
I then turned away and with my back to the shelves surveyed the room. From here I could see what made me feel off. It was the cushions. The room had a couch and two chairs. One was the reading chair I used nearly every night. It had a small dent worn into the older cushions from my use. Every night I would sit and read for an hour. When I was done I would gt up, fluff the small pillow I placed behind my back, shifting it to the left side of the chair when I was finished fluffing and then go to the bedroom to begin my nightly routine.
The pillow was flat and placed in the center of the seat. There were signs others had been in the room as well. Small signs but I knew well that small signs could bring catastrophic changes.
