She found the typewriter on a weathered desk shoved behind a chest-high stand of dried weeds near the shed. Mavis stood looking at the typewriter with one hand on her hip and the other shading her eyes from the late afternoon sun. Sweat from clearing weeds and bramble from her newly purchased property dripped down the back her neck.

“Well, it ain’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen today,” she said to herself. “Better condition than I would have thought being out here.”

As she finished talking the keys on the typewriter depressed as if someone was responding. Mavis jumped back, hand flying to her chest. “Now that’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen today.”

As the typewriter keys started clacking again, she ran for the house and threw open the porch door without breaking her stride. A few moments and a few curses later, she ran back with a piece of paper in her damp hand.

“Now don’t you be typing while I thread this paper through, you hear.” She waited and nothing happened, so she slid the paper into the typewriter. As soon as her hands left the machine, it began to type with faint words from its nearly exhausted ribbon appearing on the paper.

“Nice to have someone to talk to,” the message read.

Mavis fingered the large ring strung on a cord around her neck. “Isn’t it just? But shall we get out of the sun?”

“Much obliged.”

Mavis picked up the typewriter and walked back into her house. The sounds of clacking keys and laughter soon filled the air.

 

“Follow me!” she heard a voice call out from the narrow walkway between the buildings.

“Excuse me?” Marie asked, sticking her head into the entrance her head spinning from the heady fragrance of the rain splattered flowers.

“Follow me!” the voice called again and Marie felt a hand touch her cheek.

She spun around, but saw no one but her shadow dancing under her.

“Follow me!” a whisper at the end of the archway.

Marie pursed her lips, then smiled, and stepped onto the path.

Whenever the sea and the sky came together as one study in grey, and the sun was nothing more than a memory, Lily would walk out to the beach and see a man standing on the rocks. She’d never said hello or walked out to join him. Lily made a deal with herself that she’d talk to him if he ever turned around. He never turned around, not even when she’d see him as she went out for a run and came back an hour later. She never saw him in town or anywhere else except on the rocks when the skies were grey and the sea churned. He never turned around until today.

Hello, weekend! Saturday morning’s always seem bright with possibility, so I thought we celebrate with a short, short piece of fiction based on a photo. I love that Sarah Addison Allen shares a super-short fiction piece every Sunday, so I thought I’d follow her lead. I decided to have my short on Saturday, though, to usher in the weekend. Hope you enjoy it.

Charlotte rushed out her door, car keys in her hands only to find the breezeway occupied by two men working on a cherry-stained door. She frowned at the chisels laying on the saw bench and the bucket of tools sitting on her stoop. Why were they working on a door here?

“Excuse me? What are you doing?”

They turned around and smiled. “Working on your door, of course,” the one holding the chisel said.

“I don’t need a new door and I certainly didn’t ask for one.” Charlotte rapped her knuckles on her solid wood door and wondered if her HOA had messed up a work order, again, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Oh, we’re not replacing that one, ma’am,” the man holding the door in place said as he turned back to his colleague.

“Then which one are you replacing?” Charlotte crossed her arms in front of her chest and frowned.

The man with the chisel smiled. “The one that leads to your dreams.”