Flash Fiction on a Friday

The dreams started soon after the funeral.

Always the same.

I had to get the new owner out of the house so she had somewhere to come home to.

Even in the dream I wondered how she was going to accomplish it, having been cremated, she had no body to come back in.

Still, in the dream I dutifully crawled on my belly, commando style, up the hill to her house to get rid of the new owner.

The dreams varied only by which house it was. Sometimes it was a crazy quilt conglomeration of all the houses we had ever lived in. But it was still my job to get everyone out in preparation for her return.

Sometimes in the dream I was happy she was coming home. Sometimes I was bothered by it. Sometimes I thought she hadn’t really died and I had sold the house out from under her.

But last night’s dream was different.

I was already in the house preparing for her arrival, but this time it was MY house, and I heard her say, “It’s time to let some of this stuff go.” 

I know she’s right.

I’ve held onto too much of what had been hers. Trying to live in the past and not being fully in the present.

It’s time to let go.

After eighteen years I think I finally can.

Funny how the mind works isn’t it?