Ayesha and Gould looked down at the typewriter on the hallway carpet. After all these years it was still here.

‘When I was a child I thought it was normal,’ Gould said. ‘I thought everyone’s parents were like that.’

Ayesha looked at the two bedroom doors facing each other across the hallway. ‘So they never spoke to each other?’

‘No.’

‘They just typed messages on this?’

‘That’s right.’

Ayesha bent down and tugged at the paper in the typewriter.

‘Don’t,’ Gould said.

Ayesha winked at him. ‘Famous last words?’

Gould had his gun out. ‘Just fucking don’t.’

~

No. 24 in the ‘Beyond the Streets‘ sequence, a series of 100-word flash fiction.