Writing inspired by the SWC creative writing prompt: The Previous Occupant
Who lived in the space you are in right now before you? Do you know about them?
If not, imagine a story explaining the scratch on the bedroom door frame, the cracked bathroom tile or the blue kitchen walls they left behind.

Meet You At Your Vantage Point

By Dagmar Bayer

The room as seen from your eyes when you leave it

A hare as seen from Albrecht Duerer

Albrecht Duerer as seen from a hare

And Hans Hoffmann

Painting the same hare

Or a hare alike

Hans Hoffmann as seen from Albrecht Duerer

A hare as seen from the eyes of a writer

A hare with amber eyes*

A novel as seen from millions of readers

A hare with amber eyes

A miniature as seen from a bookshelf

And a miniature within a miniature

An eye

The eye of a fly

A fossil fly within the amber substance

A bookshelf as seen from a fossil fly

A shiny wing

Indestructibly shiny in amber substance

Did the fossil fly suffocate in amber?

Are we too endangered to suffocate in time?

Or was it just trapped by time passing quietly

Like the boiling frog fable

Too much time passing too quickly, noticed too slowly

The sister as seen from the porter

The patient as seen from her sister

The second opinion as seen from another doctor

The tree in front of the window as seen from a passer by

The painting of a hare as seen from the bed

Time as seen from a fly

The room as seen when you leave it

No obligation to leave gently

Please – leave us a sign

Like a scratch in the door frame.

* Footnote: “The Hare with the Amber Eyes”  is a novel written by Edmund de Waal and was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010.