It was a Tuesday. Not just any Tuesday, mind you, but a Tuesday that felt… Tuesdayish. Mildred, a woman of indeterminate age but definite opinions, sat on her favorite armchair. It was an armchair that had seen better days, and worse ones too, mostly involving spilled tea and a regrettable incident with a particularly sticky jam donut. The armchair was beige. Or maybe it was once beige. Now it had that lived-in quality, like a comfortable old friend who had absorbed all of life's little smudges and secrets. Mildred liked that about it. She especially liked the little dent where her hip always rested. It was a hip-shaped dent, naturally.
The sun, a rather aggressive ball of gas that Mildred often felt was a bit too enthusiastic for a Tuesday, peered through the kitchen window. It was trying its best to illuminate the dust motes dancing in the air. Mildred watched them. They danced. They really did. Like tiny, tiny ballerinas, but made of old skin flakes and bits of fluff from the beige armchair. She wondered if they ever got tired. Being a dust mote seemed like hard work, always floating, never quite landing where you wanted to be, unless you wanted to be on the top of the bookshelf, and then suddenly, there you were. Mildred sighed. Life was complicated, even for dust motes.
Her cat, Bartholomew, a creature of majestic girth and minimal ambition, was asleep on the very top of the television. The television was off, as it usually was on a Tuesday afternoon, because Mildred preferred the quiet. The quiet allowed her to think. And thinking, Mildred had often observed, was a lot like trying to herd squirrels: you started with one idea, and then suddenly you had seven, all going in different directions, and none of them were where you wanted them to be.
Today, the squirrel-herd of her mind was focused on something crucial. The curtains. They weren't fluttering. They should be fluttering. There was a window, and outside the window, there was surely some sort of breeze, because it was, after all, an outdoor kind of day. But the curtains, which were a rather faded floral pattern that Mildred had chosen because they matched absolutely nothing else in the room, were stubbornly still. They hung there, limp and uninspired, like a politician during a particularly boring speech.
"Bartholomew," Mildred said, addressing the cat, who, being asleep, offered no response. "Don't you think the curtains should be fluttering?"
Bartholomew twitched an ear. This was, for Bartholomew, the equivalent of a rousing debate in the House of Lords.
Mildred considered this profound twitch. Was it agreement? Disagreement? Or simply a muscle spasm brought on by too much sleep? Bartholomew was a creature of mystery, much like the exact origins of that one stain on the carpet near the fireplace. Mildred suspected it involved something sticky and possibly a grandchild, but the details were hazy, lost to the annals of time and short-term memory.
She stood up. This was no small feat. Standing up from the hip-shaped dent in the beige armchair required a certain amount of strategic planning, like disembarking from a small, very comfortable boat. She pushed off the armrest, which groaned in protest, a sound Mildred had come to associate with Tuesday afternoons.
"Right," she declared to the empty room, save for the sleeping cat and the un-fluttering curtains. "Curtain investigation."
Her mission was clear. She ambled towards the window, her sensible slippers making soft scuffing noises on the linoleum. The linoleum was also of an indeterminate color, a sort of grey-beige speckled pattern that reminded Mildred of a particularly uninteresting piece of modern art. But it was practical. Very practical. And easy to wipe clean, which was important when one had grandchildren and sticky jam donuts.
As she reached the window, she peered out. The garden. It was there. Still. Green. Mostly. There was a gnome, Hubert, who had been Mildred's companion for many years. Hubert wore a little red hat and had a perpetually surprised expression. Mildred often wondered what Hubert was surprised about. Perhaps the lack of curtain fluttering? It was a fair question.
She tried to open the window. The latch was a bit stiff. It always was. It was one of those old-fashioned latches, made of some kind of metal that had long ago forgotten its original color and had settled for a sort of dull, resigned grey. Mildred wrestled with it. She tugged. She pushed. She even tried talking to it, gently at first, then with a bit more firmness.
"Now, now, you old thing," she murmured, "Just a little breeze, that's all. For the curtains."
The window remained firmly shut. It seemed to be having a Tuesdayish day too.
Mildred sighed again. This was proving more complicated than she had anticipated. Most things were. Life had a way of adding extra steps, like when you wanted to make a cup of tea but then realized you were out of milk, and then you had to go to the shop, and then the shop was out of your favorite biscuits, and then suddenly you were buying a small, brightly colored bird bath because it was on sale, and then you got home and realized you still didn't have milk for your tea. It was a common occurrence.
She looked at the curtains again. Still. Still as a still life painting of a very still, unmoving thing. The floral pattern seemed to mock her with its static beauty. There were roses, Mildred thought. Or perhaps peonies. It was hard to tell, the colors having mellowed with age, like a good cheddar cheese, only not as tasty.
Suddenly, an idea, a bright, shiny squirrel, scampered into her mind. The fan! Of course! She had a fan. A rather old, somewhat wobbly fan that she kept in the hall closet. It was a faithful fan, despite its wobbliness. It had seen many summers, some hotter than others.
She shuffled towards the hall closet. The hallway was narrow, lined with various framed photographs of family members who looked suspiciously younger and thinner than they did now. Mildred didn't mind. Memories were like old sweaters; sometimes they were a bit stretched, but they were still warm.
The closet door was also stiff. Mildred eyed it suspiciously. Was everything having a Tuesdayish day today? It seemed likely. She gave the knob a firm twist, and the door grudgingly opened with a sound like a distant, elderly whale clearing its throat.
Inside, amidst a jumble of old coats, mismatched mittens, and a single, forlorn roller skate, sat the fan. It was beige, too. Mildred had a certain fondness for beige, she realized. It was a reliable color. Unassuming. Like a good friend who didn't demand too much attention but was always there when you needed them.
She pulled the fan out, carefully navigating around the roller skate, which seemed to be staring at her with its single, tiny wheel. The fan was a bit dusty. Mildred tutted. She would have to dust it. Later. Dusting was a Saturday job, unless it was an emergency dust. This was not an emergency dust. This was a curtain-fluttering emergency, which was a different kind of emergency entirely.
She plugged the fan into the nearest outlet, which was behind the television, next to Bartholomew's head. Bartholomew stirred, his whiskers twitching like tiny antennae picking up cosmic signals. He opened one eye, looked at the fan, then slowly closed it again. Clearly, a fan was not as interesting as a dust mote.
Mildred switched the fan on. It hummed to life, a low, buzzing sound that Mildred found rather comforting. It sounded like progress. The fan blades began to spin, slowly at first, then picking up speed, creating a surprisingly powerful gust of air.
She aimed the fan at the curtains. Anticipation bubbled within her. This was it. The moment of truth. The curtains, those stubborn, unyielding pieces of floral fabric, would finally flutter. They would dance! They would sway! They would embrace the breeze they had so stubbornly resisted!
The fan whirred. The air pushed.
The curtains… twitched.
Just a little. A very, very little twitch. Like a sleepy eyelid.
Mildred stared. She adjusted the fan. Higher. Lower. Closer. Further away. The curtains remained mostly still. They were practically defying the laws of physics. Or at least, the laws of fan-generated airflow.
"Well, I never!" Mildred exclaimed. This was beyond a Tuesdayish day. This was a full-blown Wednesday-level stubbornness.
She slumped back into her beige armchair, defeated. The fan continued to whir, sending cool air across her face. Bartholomew remained asleep on the television. The dust motes continued their inexplicable ballet. And the curtains… the curtains did not flutter.
Mildred closed her eyes. Perhaps tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow was Wednesday. And on Wednesday, anything could happen. The curtains might flutter. Or they might not. And perhaps, just perhaps, she would find the remote control for the television. That was a quest for another chapter entirely. But for now, the curtains, the stubborn, un-fluttering curtains, had won. And that, Mildred realized, was quite enough excitement for one Tuesday. Especially a Tuesday that felt so very, very Tuesdayish. She wondered if Hubert the gnome was judging her. Probably. Gnomes were like that. Always watching. Never fluttering.