Short Story Prompts

Prompt 7

9/7/21
Prompt: "It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least not at first glance."

My house is normal, built in the 1970s with brick and mortar. Three rooms total with an addition built on. Three bathrooms, one for each room and a spacious backyard. It's not in the middle of town, but it isn't far-out either. The place is not always clean, but nor is it falling apart at the seams. We get bugs and animals, but never an infestation. Desert animals visit, but have never harmed our pets. We can see the stars at night more than in-town, but we can also still see the lights from the dense part of the city.

Perfectly normal in every sense of the word.

I share my house with my parents, brother and two dogs - each one perfectly average as well. My parents work as a teacher and a police officer, my brother goes to high school, and my dogs.... Well, they're just dogs.

And yet with all this normalcy, all my things still go missing.

First my socks and then my sunglasses and then some more socks. Many pencils, erasers and other stationary have vanished as well. I miss shirts and single shoes and random sticky notes with important dates on them.

My home is not a very likely place for disappearances, and yet, so many things have vanished into thin air.

I say it's trolls that hide in the walls and only come out at night. Or my dogs like to eat my things. Or my items really do 'up and walk away'. Maybe they turn invisible and I vacuum them up when I clean - none the wiser. Maybe they have been stolen by someone giving to the less fortunate.

My parents tell a different story. They say it's my forgetfulness; I am a mess; never clean my room; I'm just scatter brained. But they're wrong.

Why? Because my home isn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least not at first glance.