Twice I looked at the house across the street.  I moved a little to the left, and nonchalantly looked again.  Either there really was a faintly silhouette of an effigy of a mummy hanging from the ceiling, or it was the afternoon light and shadows playing tricks on my eyes.  I turned to my best friend and asked what he saw.

“Yep,” he quipped. “It looks like a mummy, or maybe it’s Morocco’s dead husband.”

The woman who lives in that house across the street is mysterious.  Or maybe we just make her mysterious to add to the intrigue.  We call her “Morocco” because she summers in that North African country.  We do know her real name; we met her and see her at various neighborhood social functions, and we know some things about her.  She’s a PhD and writes books about women’s social culture in the Middle East, among other things.  When she is living here, she’s rarely seen in the neighborhood, except for a trip to the mailbox at the end of her driveway, dressed in a long leopard robe, slacks, and brown slippers.  Occasionally, she is spotted entering or exiting a taxi, dressed in a dark pantsuit and white fedora, suitcases in hand.  Otherwise, one rarely sees her, and she keeps the curtains drawn and lights out in the evening.  Her husband passed away years ago, hence the quip from my best friend about the possible identity of the mummy we saw through her window.

So, basically, I guess I wasn’t seeing things in her window that weren’t there.  Yet that effigy in the window has me wondering why is that thing hanging there?

©Colcannon Metropolis