Writing for Fun
September 2019
Crusade - Maxine OBrien
As she turned to switch on the kettle a swift movement from outside the kitchen window caught her eye.
She sighed heavily as she pulled down the blind despite previously enjoying the late summer sun warming the room.
He was peering through her window again. Despite his advancing age she knew her neighbour could move very quickly if she went out to confront him.
She’d been happily living in her bungalow for the last five years until he moved in next door.
He constantly complained about everything from her radio being too loud to her cat wandering into his garden.
She dutifully kept the radio volume low but, as she explained to him, she couldn’t keep her cat in her own garden as you could with a dog.
She had even started putting off her daughter coming to visit with the grandchildren as he’d inevi-tably complain they were playing too loudly in the garden.
Last week as he’d watched her putting out her rubbish for the dustman, he’d loudly declared that she had better have used the correct bag for recycling and that he would be checking.
His crusade against her had ramped up in the last couple of weeks as he had now taken to surreptitiously peering through her windows, trampling her flowers in the process but hotly denying it when she confronted him.
He even had the nerve to say that if she wasn’t doing anything wrong why did it matter!
Enough was enough. Something had to be done. She would be the bigger person and see if they could resolve their differences.
With a freshly baked batch of scones, still warm on the plate, she nervously knocked on his door.
He looked as surprised as she was nervous to see her standing there as she’d never approached his door before.
‘Can we chat? I think we need to resolve our differences and start afresh?’ Surprisingly he nodded and moved aside gesturing for her to come in.
She uncovered the scones on the table and was relieved when he disappeared to the kitchen mut-tering that they would need some tea with those.
As he poured the tea from the large brown teapot, she placed the scones on the plates.
As he began to eat, she asked him if they could try to live more harmoniously as they were neigh-bours after all and no one wanted a bad atmosphere.
After wiping the crumbs from his mouth, he explained that he knew he was a miserable old git but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Since his wife died, he had suffered terrible migraines which is why he found any noise hard to tolerate.
She was the only visitor he’d had or was likely to have. He had no family and his doctor had men-tioned a cat for company and to help with his obvious depression and loneliness but he was aller-gic to animals so that wasn’t possible.
He admitted he had looked through her window as he just like to watch her potter about indoors, baking cakes, as it reminded him of his late wife who he missed so much.
The only reason he came out when she put her rubbish out is that it was an excuse, although clum-sily, to speak to someone after days of sitting alone.
He promised he would try to be more pleasant in future and she said she’d be happy to pop in and see him, with a plate of her latest baking.
As she let herself back into the bungalow, she realised she’d misjudged him and even felt sorry for him.
She almost felt sad she’d laced his scone with arsenic now as she turned her radio up, smiling to herself.