RESEMBLANCE - We knew Mr. Alster's…

RESEMBLANCE - We knew Mr. Alster's new cat would be a long-hair because he grew his beard beyond his Adam's apple. We knew Ms. Fitzsimmons' golden retriever would be going to the groomer because Ms. Fitzsimmons had just come back from the hair salon.

Pets end up looking like their people, and people look like their pets.

In May, when the new family moved into the house beside mine, my friends and I peered through the knotholes in the fence. We saw the father walk into the garage (short, bald, muscled arms with tattoos), and all agreed the dog bed Abby saw belonged to a pit bull or Rottweiler.

A girl younger than us skipped by, hands and mouth full of candy. Hank said she probably had a hamster.

The son, a tall teen dressed in black, stood on the porch railing and used the eaves to pull himself onto the roof. He sat cross-legged at the edge, watching the movers take furniture into the house. Hank and Abby wrote him off as an petless goth and moved further down the fence, hoping to spot the dog.

That night, as I closed my bedroom window, I saw a figure crouched on my neighbor's roof. The faint light from their second story window outlined a hunched, bulky body. The head turned toward me. I yanked my curtain closed and switched off the desk lamp. The afterimage of glowing red eyes kept me awake past midnight.

My excitement kept me up until dawn, because I couldn't wait to tell my friends the teen had a pet gargoyle.

#grownostr #story #microfiction #writing #author