Narrator: Anne F. | Devon, England
I blamed my hearing aids. I am used to strange noises, feedback, half-heard conversations that turn out to be something on the radio. When the singing started, I took them out and put them on the bedside table.
The singing continued.
It came from the room across the landing. My sewing room, although very little sewing happened in it. A woman singing to herself, no words I could make out. She sounded contented.
I opened the door. The chair at the sewing table was turned away from me. A small part of the back of a head showed above it. White scalp through thin dark hair.
I said, “Excuse me,” which is an absurd thing to say to a stranger in your own house.
The singing stopped. The head lowered out of sight behind the chair. I switched on the light. There was nobody there and nowhere for anyone to hide.
I’m eighty-one. I know the questions people want to ask me. My daughter took me for a check-up and I went willingly. Nothing explains the dark hairs wound tightly around the screw that adjusts the back of that chair. Mine have been white for thirty years.
