Honorable Mention: Flash 405 November 2015, “Roots”
Fiction
From her window, she can see him arrive home. Little glimpses from the second floor, through the leaves and the branches. A bird hides in a rain gutter. She leaves her window open. She hears his car in the driveway. She sees his house—does he see her? Ground floor, second floor, windows open, leaves budding, birds. She undoes the button at her throat. Bird watching. He is a solitary man. Arrives alone. From her window, he comes home from work and puts his briefcase on the roof of the car while he digs in his pocket to retrieve his keys. Every evening. She is waiting for him to look up, waiting to see if he’ll see her. This is when the house is beautiful. In the summer and in the spring. In the light. Looking through the leaves. Sometimes even in the fall. Never the winter. In winter, in the early dark, she can see the glow of lamps already lit in his house and sometimes a silhouette against a window, sometimes two. They’ve never met. She holds her breath. In the winter everything is bare. He reaches his front door. Stepping in, he closes the door behind him. Her house is lit. If he looks, she won’t be there.
Nina Mamikunian is a writer and librarian in Los Angeles, CA. She has previously been published in Fringe Magazine and Mid American Review.