After
finally moving into his new home, he saw that the previous owner had left
behind a lot of garbage. He knew that it
was all garbage because the items were tucked in back of pieces of furniture
and had layers of dust on them, so he had absolutely no qualms in renting a
dumpster and tossing out the whole kit and caboodle.
He
only paused when he found one item on a shelf in the laundry room: it was an
oddly shaped piece of plastic with several slots, and he could not for the life
of him figure out what it possibly could be for. Did it fall off the washing machine? Was it once part of the gutters? He did not feel like searching for images of
it online so he tossed it into the dumpster with the rest of the remnants and
thought no more about it until….
ONE MONTH LATER
He
opened his front door to see the previous owner was the one who had been
knocking. “What’s up?” he asked,
territorially learning on what was now his door.
“Hi,
sorry to bother you,” the previous owner said with nervous sweat on his brow, “I
just wanted to check: after you moved in, did you happen to notice an oddly
shaped piece of plastic left behind? It
would have been in the laundry room.”
“Nope.”
“You
sure? It wasn’t that big, and it had several slots in it.”
“Didn’t
see anything like that. There was a lot
of junk left here, you know.”
“Oh,
OK. Well, if you do see it, here’s my
number – ” the previous owner handed him a slip of paper, “you can call me at
any time. I’m serious: any time.”
He
snatched the paper a bit roughly. “Sure,
fine, whatever.”
The
previous owner sweated a bit more. “It’s
just that, it’s a bit important – it’s possible that someone else may come by
here asking about it – ”
“Sure,
OK, bye!” He almost slammed the door in
the previous owner’s face before tossing the piece of paper into the garbage:
that guy was such a creep at closing, why was he still not out of his life yet?
ONE WEEK LATER
He
opened his front door to see three strangers were the ones who had been
knocking.
Oh boy, my first solicitors, he thought
when he saw them.
All
three were smiling as the one in the middle spoke. “Hello.
We understand you moved in recently.”
“Who
wants to know?” He territorially leaned
again.
“We
do know,” the leader said. “We
also know that there is a piece of plastic that the previous owner of this
residence had left behind.”
“Ugh,
that again?” He was getting very
irritated with all this – what was everyone going on about all the time? “I told him and I’ll tell you: I didn’t see
it, and bye.” He started to almost slam
the door in their faces but the leader stuck her foot in the doorway to stop
it.
“I
certainly hope you haven’t thrown that item out. It was oddly shaped and had several slots in
it.” The smiles were becoming very
strained.
“I
didn’t – oh.” He finally remembered
the thing.
“Please
tell us that you didn’t throw it out.”
The leader now was starting the nervous sweat.
He
ran through his options and decided that the best was to stick with his story: “Didn’t
see it, bye!” He managed to push her
foot away so he could slam and lock the door, throwing his back against it.
He
could hear the leader wail and bang the door with her fists: “You
fool! You’ve doomed us all!”
He
peeped through the peephole – making a mental note to get a screen door to
avoid these situations in the future – and saw the three dejectedly walk to
their waiting taxi. In the rain.
He
checked the news over the next few weeks for mention of the previous owner and/or
three suspicious people, but nothing.
The last he ever saw about the issue was a note tucked into his front
door that read: “YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE THROWN THAT ITEM AWAY, INHABITANT.”
Since
his own life going forward seemingly was unaffected by all this, he concluded that
some momentous conspiracies are best left unknown and unsolved.
