Day 9

“Write a story about a character who sees a photo they shouldn’t have seen.” - Reedsy prompts

Jonah wakes up groggily, the light piercing his eyelids as day breaks outside his window. Wait, not his window. A window.

His eyes flutter open under his arm and he begins to look about. His right foot is dangling over the side of a low bed, skimming the warm floorboards which are bathed in sunlight.

Striped pajamas, whose pajamas? Jonah doesn’t recognize them, but he recognizes his leg. That’s my leg.

The white comforter is strewn about his torso and he can smell the faint musk of old lavender and detergent. Ok, not my bed.

Warily he turns his head to his left, unsure of whose face will greet him but to his relief the sheets showed the indent of someone who had laid there but was no longer next to them.

Man? Woman?

As he’s thinking, trying to remember the last twenty-four hours, a screen lights up on the bedside table on the now missing occupant’s side of the bed.

Jonah scoots over, hoping to find a clue.

His blurry eyesight catches, just in a time, the face of a man smiling at the camera, holding a large fish with water, maybe a lake, in the background. That face.

Next to the man is a small woman beaming up at him wearing dark sunglasses.

Jonah stares at the woman. Mom.

The phone screen fades to black.