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{This is a response to a prompt by Michael Jackson at Tuesday Scribes.  The task is to write 200 words, inspired by the picture.  Thanks for the prompt and thanks for reading!}

 

 

The home-owners association documents called it common space, but the plat showed, each lakeside home owned a tiny sliver.

Shared responsibility, thought Nellie, President of Bridgeside HOA.  Inconvenient.

She, too, lived lakeside.

“Fellow homeowners!”

Nellie slammed the gavel down on the fold-out table, calling the meeting to order.  Residents looked about sheepishly, took their seats.

Her blue eyes were wild, behind tendrils of gray.  “We have a serious problem on our hands,” she intoned.  She let the sentence sink in.

Whispers passed through the room like a wave.

“It may have escaped your attention,” Nellie continued, “but we have a visitor.  On the island.  An unwelcome visitor.”

All eyes turned toward the glass doors.  One could plainly see, in the middle of the small drainage pond, a lump of ancient excavator’s dirt, now grown over with poison ivy and loblolly pine.

A small guffaw escaped an unkempt, gray-bearded man in the back corner.

“You call that an island?” he jeered.

“Our newest members may not realize, but for lakeside homeowners, this is a matter of privacy, of safety!”

“I live on the lake,” grinned the old man.  “I have lake on all sides.”

“Your name?” Nellie hissed with irritation.

“Bridgeside.”