by KitMcDaydream on Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:39 am
(not our real house number!)
There's a secret family at No 6, did you know?
They hide in there afraid of window cleaners or unexpected visitors to the door. Who should answer? who should pretend to be whoever the other human is expecting to see.
The original occupant of this property left, but she was the only one entitled to it really, at least from a legal viewpoint. She carried the name on important papers that meant she was entitled to live here.
The Secret family don't share the same name, but they share the same body! There's your typical mother figure, a couple of wayward teenagers and a couple of younger kids there most days. The World see's one, one body, one legal name, one occupant. It expects it.
A letter or card comes from someone who knew the last host, they don't know the host left years ago, the 'personality' they knew isn't here anymore.
What do they do? Pretend it never arrived? send a brief text to say thanks and hope the other person don't ask too many questions they can't answer? Past experience tells them that once they reply there will be expectations..to be open to tell them what 'the host' been doing, their words indicate they expect the host's condition to be exactly the same as when they knew them. Expectation to say 'I am good thanks' and wait for the dreaded question 'so when can we meet?'
Innocent words but exhausting words, it's easy to just send a text as if its from the host but meeting..that requires the family (or at least one member) to physically 'be' the host, for several hours in person, that reality is expecting to see. It's physically exhausting.
But the family revealing themselves means so much disruption, hospital maybe at a time where there's a pandemic in the outside world with millions already dead from it. The body getting this virus means the end of the whole family, so they stay secret..glaring resentfully at the envelope that triggers so much anxiety and fear.
It can wait another day, the other person can't know whether the family's postman came today or tomorrow or the next day or ever with the card containing so many expectations!
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