Visitors

Zane Lee at Unsplash.com

“Look over there. It looks like a Hobbit hole.”

“A movie set, more likely,” Teddy replied.

“Why would there be a movie set in the middle of a national park?” Andrea questioned.

“A tourist trap then,” Teddy corrected.

“Then where are the tourists, and the souvenir shops and stuff?” she challenged.

Just then the knob on the blue door turned, and a four-foot-tall woman stepped out onto the porch and began collecting dishes from the table near the entrance.

“You can come out of the underbrush,” she called.  “I don’t bite.”

“We weren’t hiding,” Andrea lied.

“That’s neither here nor there,” the diminutive woman responded.

“What is this place?” Teddy asked.

“My home of course,” the small woman replied, rubbing the top of one of her bare feet with the heel of the other.

“Home?” Andrea repeated.

“Yes Deary, my home. Have you seen the rents in the city these days?”

“But why in the national park?” Teddy asked.

“Why in the world not?” she responded, as a six-foot Park Ranger stooped to make his exit from the little dwelling. “Look, Henry we have company,” she said to her husband as he straightened and stepped into the daylight.

 

Padre

 

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #69