Returning

Returning, my hand still on the door that I never lock, I immediately had a curious and absurd feeling, as if that was not my house.

At first, the smell: in addition to burning wood in the fireplace and the aroma of coffee in the kitchen, there was something. A  barely distinct scent, perhaps a rare citrus, which reminded me of some sweets I must have eaten as a child. When I turned on the light, then, I found it odd that the book on the Treasures of Magna Grecia I was browsing before going out was no longer on the couch. And that same couch was more to the left of the window.

Who could have touched my things? I live alone. This made it all the more inexplicable that the crystal chandelier was missing, that the sofa was red instead of gray, and especially the presence of the woman, disturbing although beautiful and half-naked,  who, on seeing me, screamed and tried to cover herself with a pillow.

What are you doing here, I was going to ask her, when she, who had been frantically rummaging in a drawer and had found something dark and shiny, pulled the trigger, and despite her obvious unfamiliarity with the weapon, shot me straight through the heart. I did not have time to understand what she was doing, and now lie bewildered in some stinking, dark hole somewhere, condemned to ignorance and oblivion.