Dear Wigleaf,

Is it you who has left so many anonymous messages on my neighborhood site? Are you feeding the lost cat? Was your bike stolen in broad daylight from your front porch? Has someone rifled through your car in the middle of the night, stealing your pile of parking meter change? Are you angry about the hike in your property taxes? The lack of parking at the Sea Wall? Has your mail been tampered with? (Get a post office box! Mr. Rivetta says.) Were you the one who found a Ziploc bag full of jewelry washed up on the beach? I can't describe it so I don't think it's mine.

Are you watching us through your peephole, making sure we carry plastic bags while walking our dogs? Making sure we belong here? Please tell me it's not you who complained about the "subsidized ghetto kids" allowed to attend our neighborhood school. I don't want to think about you watching their joyful skips down the sidewalk after the bell signals the day's end. Thinking those ugly thoughts that hurt my ears and drown out the chatter and giggle of third graders. I stand at the water's edge, listening for the music that drives your complaints, your curmudgeonly spite, your middle-of-the-night rants. But I hear nothing. Just the waves and the crickets saying good-bye and the thrum of the blood pushing through my veins.

Yours truly, Cindy



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Cindy House is a Finalist for the 2019 Mythic Picnic Postcard Prize.

Read Cindy's story.

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