It's Still Life

Brigid’s Diary: Part 12.2, Arles, Spring 1836

Under the Floorboard

The shouting started next door: boots on stairs, a man’s voice like a stomp, the scrape of furniture across wood, and the thin-pitched sound of children when they learn the house is not theirs.

I tasted blood where I’d bitten my lip without noticing, salt and iron, and my hands found the What Is Property pamphlets as if paper could grow hot with fear.

Felreil stood by the door and listened the way a blade listens …still, and exact — while the walls carried every plea and every blow as clearly as prayer.

I did not burn the pages, because fire is too final and rebellion survives by passing from hand to hand, and I have always known that when difference is named out loud, concealment becomes the only option.

When the knock came closer to our stairwell, to our landing — I slid the contraband pamphlets into the dark beneath a loose board, dust rising like old breath, and set the rug back as carefully as if I were laying a baby to sleep.

If this diary is found, know this: the police searched for foreigners first, and I hid the truth where footsteps could not see it.

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Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link. Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “option“. Images created with Midjourney; all writing is my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.