Hands on hips, Sherry glared at the stacks of boxes remaining in her garage. They had to go.
She and husband Miles had long ago vowed to live a tidy life with minimal belongings, a backlash against childhoods spent in hoarder homes. And so they did, until her dad got displaced and her garage offered the only temporary storage place among family nearby.
This lurking clutter jarred her nerves. Over the course of four months the piles had slowly diminished with each visit from her father. He picked through his belongings, taking a few boxes each time back to his small apartment to sort.
Sherry poked through another box. Paper grocery bags, neatly folded. Useful still, right?
A ten year supply, at least, and at 86 her dad didn't need a ten year supply. Sherry tossed them in the paper recycling bin.
Another box held old magazines. Out they went. No, she wouldn't ask his permission. His face would brighten and he'd rally an argument why they were all keepers. Simple fact: He had no room now for items that might one day prove useful.
Sherry pulled back flaps on a large container. Inside she found a small spare travel case, rigid and heavy, fifty years old at least. It held ratty toothbrushes and nearly empty toothpaste tubes that now clunked into the trash can.
The case itself was fit for a thrift store, but before she plunked it in that pile, Sherry gave the case one last shake.
Out from behind the mirror slid two slips of paper. Green-tinted paper. American currency. Sporting, in the corners, the number 100.
Sherry sat back and blinked, recalling road trips of long ago. Dad had never trusted travelers checks.
Grinning wryly, she gave the case one more shake, and found a butter knife to slide behind the mirror, but that was all the more there was to the treasure trove. Back in the 60's, two hundred dollars' worth of gas would get the old Ford station wagon all the way home from anywhere.
(Rest of the story: she returned her find to its proper owner.)
YOU ARE READING
Hatchlings: fantasy and sci fi tales
FantasyA menagerie of flash fiction, hatched from ideas of many colors from here, there, and elsewhere: mostly fantasy but a sprinkling of sci-fi and contemporary.
