A quick tale 212

The reluctant one

She sees the guests off and close the door behind them. She turns around and imagine the house through their eyes. Did they notice the clean carpets? The colour coded cushions and curtains? Did they note the fresh flowers in the vase? And the garden with its lush, trimmed lawn? She hopes they remarked on the small kitchen garden. And didn't find the air freshener in the toilet overwhelming. She remembered to smooth the bed covers and plump the pillows before they arrived. And if they had snooped into her medicine cabinet, they wouldn't have found anything to suggest embarrassing illnesses. Her mirrors were wiped clean, her bins emptied and her newspapers folded, their corners aligned. Bet on the drive back home, they talked about how well-maintained the house was. And what a great job she was doing of keeping it. Good thing is they'd never know that she’d burnt the toast this morning, filled the dying shampoo bottle with water, hid rotting fruit in the fridge, mixed coloured clothes with the whites in the washing machine and stashed away spices in the cupboard that were so past their expiry date that they rightfully belong to the government. Not her fires were extinguished. At heart, she was still an anarchist.