The Shift

This is a place I wanted to see.

It is the inheritance that I was cheated of, and I had come to spend some time here, as my brother’s guest. One needed boots to move past the shrubs on the stairs. The chauffeur swore that he had seen a reptile slithering through, and that he would not venture past the fence. The musty smell of a house locked for several years, and the thick layers of dust did not revive any childhood memory. It would be a chore to clean this place up, but I saw little hope of taking it to its past glory.

Past … it is the futile word I was clinging to, for so long. A past that does not exist, and rebuilding it is not worth the effort. The grudge against my parents for being unfair, the pain of being ignored, the perceived favouritism is all vanishing in thin air … It just does not matter.

This is a place I would never want to be in. The only recourse is to bury the past, and lock the doors again.

I called the chauffeur to bring the car out. We would be driving back today.

Inspired by Roger Shipp at

Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner 2017 – Week 27