Carol Emshwiller - I Live with You

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Short Story: I Live with You By Carol Emshwiller

Here's an unsettling tale of a domestic sort from Ms. Emshwiller, who reports that she has several

new books due out soon: Mr. Boots, a novel for younger readers, and a story collection that will

reprint this tale, as you might deduce from the fact that the collection is entitled I Live with You

and You Don't Know It.

I Live with You

By Carol Emshwiller

I live in your house and you don't know it. I nibble at your food. You wonder where it went ... where

your pencils and pens go.... What happened to your best blouse. (You're just my size. That's why I'm

here.) How did your keys get way over on the bedside table instead of by the front door where you

always put them? You do always put them there. You're careful.

I leave dirty dishes in the sink. I nap in your bed when you're at work and leave it rumpled. You thought

you had made it first thing in the morning and you had.

I saw you first when I was hiding out at the book store. By then I was tired of living where there wasn't

any food except the muffins in the coffee bar. In some ways it was a good place to be ... the reading, the

music. I never stole. Where would I have taken what I liked? I didn't even steal back when I lived in a

department store. I left there forever in my same old clothes though I'd often worn their things at night.

When I left, I could see on their faces that they were glad to see such a raggedy person leave. I could see

they wondered how I'd gotten in in the first place. To tell the truth, only one person noticed me. I'm

hardly ever noticed.

But then, at the book store, I saw you: Just my size. Just my look. And you're as invisible as I am. I saw

that nobody noticed you just as hardly anybody notices me.

I followed you home—a nice house on the outskirts of town. If I wore your clothes, I could go in and out

and everybody would think I was you. But I wondered how to get in in the first place? I thought it would

have to be in the middle of the night and I'd have to climb in a window.

But I don't need a window. I hunch down and walk in right behind you. You'd think somebody that

nobody ever notices would notice other people, but you don't.

Once I'm in, right away I duck into the hall closet.

You have a cat. Isn't that just like you? And just like me also. I would have had one were I you.

The first few days are wonderful. Your clothes are to my taste. Your cat likes me (right away better than

he likes you). Right away I find a nice place in your attic. More a crawl space but I'm used to hunching

over. In fact that's how I walk around most of the time. The space is narrow and long, but it has little

windows at each end. Out one, I can look right into a tree top. I think an apple tree. If it was the right

season I could reach out and pick an apple. I brought up your quilt. I saw you looking puzzled after I

took the hall rug. I laughed to myself when you changed the locks on your doors. Right after that I took a

photo from the mantel. Your mother, I presume. I wanted you to notice it was gone, but you didn't.

I bring up a footstool. I bring up cushions, one by one until I have four. I bring up magazines, straight

from the mail box, before you have a chance to read them.

What I do all day? Anything I want to. I dance and sing and play the radio and TV.

When you're home, I come down in the evening, stand in the hall and watch you watch TV.

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