It was Danielle who mentioned it first. “Is it me, or does the hallway seem narrower to you?” she asked one evening as she paused on her way into the kitchen.
David laughed. “We’ve lived here a month now and it seems the same to me.” Danielle made a face and kept walking. Still the impression clung to her like a burdock.
A few days later, she broached the topic again. They were having wine before dinner. “I can’t explain it, but the rooms seem… smaller to me somehow.”
“Listen, honey,” David said with characteristic patience, “you’ve been under a lot of stress. Moving, getting acclimated to a new job. You’re tired and on edge.” David swirled the wine in his glass. He enjoyed watching the ‘legs’ cling to the sides and dissipate.
“I’m not imagining it!” Her voice had a plaintive quality, as though she wanted to be reassured further.
By the following week, David swore he had to turn sideways to walk between their sofa and the coffee table. He never had to do that before. He made a mental note to ask Danielle if she had moved the furniture.
A couple of days later, he was brushing his teeth. He saw Danielle in the mirror. “The bathroom seems cramped,” she remarked as she put a clean towel on the rack.
David dried his hands. “The bathroom is small. We knew that when we bought the place.”
From then on, the thought seemed to haunt them. Danielle noticed things she felt certain had moved. The rug under the dining table seemed to take up more space. A framed picture on the wall appeared closer to the mantle.
David began to suspect Danielle was surreptitiously rearranging things to prove her suspicions. He found her once in the middle of the night in the living room, standing with her palm flat against the wall.
“Danielle, what are you doing?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
A few nights later, they argued about the whole thing. David accused her of becoming obsessed. Danielle said she felt ‘dismissed’. Once peace was restored, David noticed he could no longer stand between his dresser and the window as he often did when dressing.
Next day, David bought a tape measure. He measured the living room. Danielle watched from the doorway. The numbers matched the listing the realtor had given them.
Danielle stared at the tape measure, then at the paper in David’s hand. “I don’t believe it,” she said, turning away.
Soon, the couple remarked on how often they bumped into each other in the kitchen. Drawers seemed to take up more space when opened. Ceiling fans looked lower.
Eventually, they stopped inviting people over. They worked from home whenever possible. The thought of leaving the house for long seemed too ‘risky’.
A month later, they had enough. They checked into an extended-stay hotel. Neither went back to the house except to get clothes or necessities.
Finally, they put the house on the market. In a few weeks it sold. David and Danielle began searching for a new home. The hotel was an expense, but they enjoyed its open, airy floor plan; a feature they asked their realtor to look for.
One evening, after getting a call that their offer on a house had been accepted, they celebrated with a second bottle of wine.
This time it was David who brought it up first.
As he was drying the dishes, he said, “Danielle, did you do something to the light over the sink? It seems lower than it was. I almost bumped my head…”
James C. Clar divides his time between Upstate New York and Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has also appeared in The Blotter Magazine, MetaStellar Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Magazine of Literary Fantasy and Freedom Fiction Journal.
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