Micro fiction by Federica Silvi 

Hanging, still hanging, gone

The metallic grey Nissan covered in ads for the Juliet & Romeo Matchmaking Agency has held the same spot in the Safestore parking lot for months, and the frayed rope stuck to the neighbour’s windowsill still has a lanky Santa puppet holding on by one hand. I couldn’t blame you for thinking everything looked right in its place in December, but it’s almost spring now, and I can’t be the only one seeing the lingering signs of decay.

You once told a room full of people that I always notice the things no one else does; you said it like you held the key to the best thing about me they couldn’t know. Now, you shoot me worried looks from the side of your eye, and I see who I’ve become to you: a lost cause, a stubborn child, hurling dull-edged words at a wall of silence. 

Within a week of us moving in, the old lady with the gaudy Christmas display knew how long we’d been together and what our dogs were called. I couldn’t help being scared of finding out what else she’d learnt about us. Every time I crossed the street to avoid walking past her door, I wondered if she was behind the curtains, looking straight at me not looking back. That was before you started calling me paranoid; before someone planted the For Sale sign in her yard; before I could think of only one reason she would leave one of her marionettes behind.

These days, I get the feeling that the next time I’ll remember to check in on Santa I’ll be on my own. I wonder how I will find him. Hatless, hair and beard waving in the wind. Capsized and drenched in rain. Tangled in his ladder turned noose. Hanging, still hanging, gone.