Post-Its

Someone was leaving post-its all over Simone's flat whilst she slept.
It started with one. On the bathroom mirror. YOU'RE FAT, it said.
Simone was taken aback. She was a tad overweight (A healthy yet buxom size 14, but only at Peacocks and only when she breathed in.) But FAT? Fat was... fat was how she would describe herself. From someone else's lips, or here, pen, it was rather hurtful. Very hurtful, in fact. YOU'RE FAT, Simone read to herself. Then she stopped worrying about what it said and realised, very abruptly, that she should be wondering how it had gotten there. She lived alone, in a basement flat on a nice(ish) street in Maida Vale. Someone could have gotten in, but only through the bedroom window, and she would have been sleeping right beside it. It unsettled her deeply. She studied the handwriting. Neat block capitals in a red felt-tip. She didn't even own a red felt tip. This was an outside job. She crumpled it up and threw it in the bathroom bin. She was late for work. She could worry about it once she was on the bus.

But after a long day at her dead-end desk-job, she was too tired to give it a thought. This was a blessing, for had she remembered, sleep would not have come easy. Thankfully, it did.

The next day, however, there were three of them. One on the mirror again. YOU'RE FAT, it said. The second one was on the kitchen cupboard. YOU'RE A FAT MESS. Oh, thanks, thought Simone. Not just fat, but also a mess. The third was in her left shoe. YOU'RE GOING NOWHERE. Yeah, I am, thought Simone. I'm going to work. And she left, the irony hanging in the air behind her like a heavy cloud.

That night she couldn't forget it. It was probably her brother, playing a prank. She tried to remember if he still had a set of keys, but she wasn't sure. Maybe it was the landlady, although she was in her seventies and didn't seem to have much of a sense of humour, not even a twisted one. Simone double locked the doors and checked that her windows were properly shut. After hours of lying with her eyes open, she eventually fell asleep, though all through the night she dreamt of strange people drawing on her with red felt-tips.

In the morning, there were more. A lot more. They said things like YOU'RE A WASTE OF SPACE and YOU'D BE BETTER OFF DEAD - they had drifted dangerously from offensive to mildly threatening. Although one just said YOU'RE OUT OF MILK (she was). This was scary. This was beyond a joke. She called her brother, who swore he knew nothing, and suggested she tried the police. He sounded really concerned. She asked him to cut it out, but then he reminded her he'd given back the spare keys and that she'd put them in her drawer. She didn't quite believe him, but it seemed rather likely so she thanked him and hung up.

But she didn't have time to check the drawer. Simone was late for work again. God, she hated her job. It was bad enough that she was getting harassed by post-its, but the messages were hitting home. She hurried out the door, not even bothering to take the post-it out of her shoe (YOU'RE SQUASHING ME, FATTY). If it happened again, she thought, she would call the police. Maybe she should get someone to stay the night, just to be sure. If only I had a boyfriend. (Later she found a post-it in her lunch box reiterating her single status - NO ONE LOVES YOU - and in brackets below, it said because you're fat.) Great, she thought.

But she couldn't think of anyone to ask without seeming crazy. Perhaps she should just phone the police. That night when she got home, she did so. She felt very silly, but the person on the other end of the phone made her feel better about having called, and suggested that she stay somewhere else that night, and that they would  send someone to survey the premises and watch for the intruder. It really ramified the danger. If someone was breaking in, they could do anything to her. Nothing was being taken, or even moved; their motives could be altogether more sinister. Simone would be all too glad to stay somewhere else. She booked a room in a local hotel and started packing an overnight bag. Then she remembered the key. She went over to her chest of drawers and pulled open the top one, just to be sure her brother hadn't been lying.

Lying there, among other general household detritus, were the spare keys. Simone felt a shiver down her spine. Things had become more real. Shaken, she began to close the drawer, then something caught her eye. Three things, actually.

One: a block of yellow post-it notes.
Two: a red felt-tip pen.
Three: a small, fleck of red ink, on the index finger of her right hand.
Her writing hand.