All in All! 3

I left the Drop In to go home, and noted the Methodist church times on the way down, since it was still cold they were using the East Room – more comfy – in cold weather. Part of my plan had been to go back to my old ways, and meet the people who I'd been friendly with before.

Since Eric had died, my life had become very small, I'd moved back, one of the kids had helped, into a smaller house, with a garden, nothing special, yet I thought it was.

I'd hoped the people next door would have been friendly too, except that they seemed to have their own agenda and resented new comers to the village. At first I thought that only one side were playing the village game, yet now I knew it was both. I could hear them sometimes when they woke me up at night planning.

“Well she'll never know, will she?” a man's voice said, “So lets take all the family wills.”
“If we go around talking,” said a younger woman's voice, “Nice like, then we'll be believed, she'll never get a chance round here then.”
“Shhhhhhhhhhh!” said an older female, “She's awake!”
They moved into a back room, further away, I mentally blasted the architect who designed the bedroom next to someone's back lounge. I didn't realize just how badly designed it all was.

The other side were talking too, outside in the early hours of the morning, they had nightly visitors who stayed within the back fencing, who looked up for extraterritorial visitors. They didn't like my solar lights, it worried the U.F.O.'s apparently. In their earlier life, I had been told by someone they'd been ghouls – straight out of comic book fiction. Were they awaiting celestial bone?

A large car parked outside, the engine on, heavy motor noise, I moved out of bed and into the lounge, couldn't sleep anymore, I'd have to have tea. Outside a transaction seemed to be in the making.
“You have to sign the release,” he said, “Otherwise we can't do anything.”
“Where is she?” he asked cautiously. “The lights don't appear to be on.”
“No-one lives there,” the younger female said, “She lives next door with us, come on round, it's just a big house really.”
I looked out, the night black, there was no car, no young female. So where had the voices come from?