The Curtain House

by Beth Sherman

A memory. Me, age 11, in the backyard of a stranger’s house, watching a pileated woodpecker tap a sweet gum tree. Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack, the bird calls, in a shrill, urgent voice. My father is inside — this'll just take 10 minutes and then we'll get some ice cream. I can almost taste peanut butter swirls, almost smell toffee bits crumbled on top. I pluck a blade of grass, touch its slippery green to my cheek.

All the curtains in the house are drawn. Tilting my head, I see the woodpecker vacuuming ants down its beak. I don’t own a watch, but it’s been more than ten minutes, so long that I wonder if my father will ever come out or if the house has swallowed him whole.

Later, when my mother asks where we’ve been, I don’t mention the woodpecker or the curtain house or the strange look on my father’s face when he got in the car, like he’d been lost in the woods and just spotted a breadcrumb, or that the ice cream place was closed when we got there. We drove around, I say, which was partially, mostly true.

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Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than 100 literary journals, including 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, Tiny Molecules and Bending Genres. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and she can be reached @bsherm36 on Instagram, Blusky, or X.

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