Francie’s Tiny Home

Photo by Kim Davies on Unsplash

Francie lived in a tiny home, with three rooms. A bathroom, a bedroom and a kitchen. One room for each bodily function. Keep oneself clean, sleep and eat. Every Friday she would come home from school, where she worked as a librarian, and she would sweep the house to prepare for the weekend. From the library, she brought home three books, which she would read over the weekend.

As she swept the kitchen, she found the word, “puff,” which took several passes of the broom before she could direct it into the dustpan. It kept floating up into the air, and landing back on the floor, until she finally cupped it in her hand, and took it over to the windowsill, where she proudly displayed it, for the neighbors to see as they passed by. She continued to sweep the kitchen until her broom caught on the word, “hamburger.” It grossed her out, because she was a vegetarian, and she didn’t know how it got there. It was a mound of ground round, weighing a pound, a blob of red and white nodules held together by blood and fat. It was wrapped in clear plastic, with a one by two inch rectangular white label that said, “McNeil Canyon.” Below the meat packer’s name were instructions for safe handling, Net Wt. 1.0 lb., and the price. It looked like a volcano, with a hole in the center, like the ones the children sometimes built for their science projects. She touched it, and it was very cold, as if it had just come in from the snowy weather outside. She thought it still might have some life to it, so she picked it up with a paper towel and put it in the refrigerator. Did Fluffy steal this thing and bring it inside as a gift to her, like he so often did with the mice and moles he caught in the yard? There were no tooth holes in the wrapper, and it was too heavy for a small cat to carry, so how could he have brought it inside? At least it would be safe in the refrigerator, until she could figure out what to do with it.

Francie went back to sweeping, and when she went to empty the dustpan, she found a dried rosehip, which she put on the windowsill beside the puff. She must have dropped it and kicked it under the edge of the counter, when she was making rosehip jelly last week. Spring was on its way, so she would use the rosehip to plant another bush after the snow melts.

She dumped the dust into the garbage and moved on to the bathroom. There was a little pink ball in the corner that produced a tinkling sound when she threw it for Fluffy. She washed it off with antibacterial soap, and placed it on the windowsill in the kitchen. She wondered how long it would be before Fluffy would find it there. She finished cleaning the bathroom with a mop and Lysol. She found a pink bobby pin. Who even uses these anymore? She threw it in the trash, and then had an idea. “That would make the cutest bookmark,” she told herself. She washed and dried it, and placed it on the windowsill with the puff and the jingle ball. She continued mopping the bathroom, and pulled out a penny from under the kick space. She washed it with Lysol, dried it, and placed it on the windowsill with the puff, the rosehip, the tinkle ball and the bobby pin. She rinsed the mop with hot, hot water and hung it on a hook to air dry.

She moved on to the bedroom. She was a “clothes on the floor” kind of person, and since moving into her tiny home, she did not have a mother around to tell her to pick them up. As she picked them up, she shook them out and laid the clothes that were still clean on the bed, to hang on the empty wall hooks later. She shook out her favorite button up vest, and out flew a heart shaped lavender sachet. Mr. Spencer, the biology teacher had given it to her when he checked out “Cannery Row,” by John Steinbeck. She had looked at him over her reading glasses, felt an embarrassing glimmer of connection and thanked him politely.

“Call me Bill,” he said.

She avoided him since that incident. “What would he think of all these clothes scattered about on my bedroom floor?”

She blushed, took the heart shaped sachet into the kitchen, and set it on the windowsill with the puff, the rosehip, the tinkle ball and the bobby pin.

Once she had all the clothes picked up, and hung on hooks, or thrown in the hamper, she picked up the broom. She reached under the bed with the broom and pulled out underpants, which made her blush, and she didn’t know why she was embarrassed about her own underpants which would never be seen by anybody. She dropped them in the hamper.

“No place on the windowsill for these,” she mumbled, and giggled at the thought.

She reached under her bed again with the broom, and pulled out a bookmark, with an owl printed on it. She had bought it, along with the Harry Potter book she had finished reading over the course of one weekend. She placed it on the windowsill, along with the puff, the rosehip, the tinkle ball, the bobby pin and the penny.

This weekend, she would be reading John Steinbeck’s books, “The Moon is Down,” “The Winter of our Discontent,” and “The Log From the Sea of Cortez.” She would use her owl bookmark for that.

She heard a soft knock on the door. She looked out the kitchen window.

Mr. Spencer!

Oh, No! Had she invited him for hamburgers and Tater Tots tonight? She ducked, so he wouldn’t see her. Fluffy came running over.

Mr. Spencer rang the doorbell, paused, and then knocked harder. Fluffy sat on her lap, as she sat on the floor. She hoped Mr. Spencer would not hear the purring, as she held Fluffy to keep him quiet. She could not answer the door, because she had not read the books. She would apologize next week at school. She waited quietly until she could hear his boots crunching in the snow, and his car pulling away from her tiny house.

She didn’t eat dinner, but after dark, she opened the door to let Fluffy out. There was a bouquet of roses lying on the porch. She remembered the song she had learned as a girl, “Roses in the Snow.” She cried as she brought them in. She put them in a vase, and went to bed. She picked up the bookmark on the way. She opened “The Moon is Down,” and began reading.

When the sun came up on Saturday, she heard a crash, and a bell tinkling. Fluffy had claimed his spot on the window sill, in the warm sun. She thought she had a bad dream, until she saw the roses in the vase on the countertop.