mystery

We’d just moved into the place, but the drain had been working and the glass had been intact, and then one morning they weren’t. My wife tapped her fingernail lightly on the crack in the pane and it sounded like something was knocking, asking to be let in.

Then the spices went missing. The sea salt, the marjoram, the rosemary, even our custom poultry blend. Finally, the saffron – forty dollars’ worth – and I asked my wife if she’d been reorganizing the kitchen. She said she hadn’t. A few days later I found the soft red threads sprinkled in each cup of my bra. I’d have gone to her and produced it as evidence – though evidence of what, I was not certain – but she’d been out of town the night I’d shrugged the bra onto the floor before bed and was still gone when I picked it up the next day. I tried to gather the saffron but it dissolved to dust beneath my fingers, coloring the tips a burnt orange that didn’t wash off for days.!