housemate

For J___, who dealt with me when I was being a little odd.

Someone has been living in my house.

At first I thought my mind was just going--my food was emptying faster than I thought it should have, some of the other things I had were going away. But I started keeping track and found that someone was definitely taking it, and set up cameras. She lives in the attic and comes down when I'm out or when I've gone to sleep at night.

I asked my friends about it and they said I should call the cops or go up into the attic and do something about it, but that felt wrong. She was living just the same as I was, wasn't she?

Instead I left her a note when I went out. "Hi. I'm going to the store tomorrow. Do you want anything? -RM."

I came home to a note saying "Thanks for asking, but I'm happy with whatever."

We exchanged notes for a while. I never asked what she was doing in my attic, and she never offered to answer, so it worked out okay. We talked about lots of things. It gave me something to look forward to when I got home, since she'd always answer, and she was nice. She felt trustworthy.

I hinted that maybe we should actually meet in person one time, and she just ignored that comment, so I dropped the subject. I'd seen her on camera enough times, but I figured there was probably a reason. There's always a reason.

The notes stopped one day. I checked everywhere and there wasn't anything there. There was nothing on the cameras. No one had touched any of my food. I even went up to the attic and there was nobody there. She was gone, just like she'd never existed.