Gerald Fleming: The Secret

The man had the sense the secret was planning escape. 

            It paced—wore grooves in the pine floor of the downstairs den. Quiet at first, content to be fed, it no longer behaved like a dispirited zoo animal but moaned in a way its owner found unnerving, as if from the center of the earth.

            The secret uttered rough gutturals—its own language, incomprehensible. Its owner would visit, pace with it awhile, try to speak with it, but all he got were those mutterings—impossible to parse.

            It became clear that the secret couldn’t be kept in one room anymore: its pacing increased, it rejected home-cooked meals, accepted food from only the best restaurants in the city. An arrogance—its owner was afraid of that. Perhaps it needs more exercise.

            So he went to his next door neighbor.

            “That secret I’m keeping—the one that involves you—I’m having a hard time with it, and here’s a proposition. What if we built a corridor between houses? It needs space. If we can do that, and the secret ever gets out, I’ll claim it as my own, deny you were involved.”

            The neighbor hesitated, but agreed. 

            Excavation, construction, and soon the secret had another house to pace in, seemed to like the new pacing space into the one below the neighbor’s house.

            Its owner considered it a shared responsibility now, felt relieved. He’d pace with the secret but go only half-way through the corridor: no more.

            Once, the secret came down the corridor muttering, reading a book as it walked: a novel.

            “I didn’t know you could read,” its owner said, and the secret muttered a little, went back to the book.

            Soon the neighbor’s husband didn’t much like the secret in their house. He claimed that his wife had welcomed it too warmly, that the thing was rummaging through the library all night, that he didn’t feel comfortable going down anymore—the secret kept taking books, reading them in one day, never putting them back in the right place.

            “It’s read all my mysteries,” said the husband, “and now it’s onto the language books.”

            The man was disturbed, too, when he noticed his wife bringing hot cookies to the secret, aromatic pies. Then in the middle of one Saturday night he reached for his wife in bed, she wasn’t there, so he called out for her, heard her walking up the stairs. 

            “Why’d you go down there?” asked the man.

            “The secret’s lonely. I was… keeping it company.”

            That didn’t sit well. Soon the man went to his next-door neighbor.

            “Remember the time I got your son off on that felony charge for the hit-and-run? Well, I’ve a favor to ask in return.”

            Soon another corridor was built, and not long after that another, another, and by the end of the year the secret had the run of the entire block—books belonging to one household mixed with others—and the secret was fluent in in eight languages—Dutch among them, Finnish, even Basque, and was twice its earlier weight.

            The secret’s owner, more disturbed than ever. It seemed to him the secret was staying longer in the neighbors’ homes. Were they talking over there? 

            He couldn’t stand it anymore— he was drinking, his hands shaking. 

            I’ll let the secret out, he thought, deal with whatever happens.

            So he planned a party. Invited not just the neighbors but his, colleagues, doctors, his dentist, veterinarian. Bought himself a new suit, had the event catered. The party began, waves of perfume in the air.

            “Friends, neighbors, family,” he said, “please gather ’round. I’ve been waiting a long time to do this, but now I’d like to introduce you to my secret.”

            Silence.

            The secret emerged from a cloak room dressed in an apple-red tuxedo, face shining, a glass of champagne in its hand. “Bon soir, monsieurs et madames,” said the secret, mellifluous.

            Laughter. 

“I’ve had this secret for years,” its owner said, “and tonight …”

            He continued talking, but people simply shrugged, went on with their conversations, and soon his voice was lost among the others.

            The man at first thought no one wanted to know his secret—he was confused—but then saw the secret circulating, slapped on the back, calling across the room to someone in Italian, to someone else in German, to a third in Portuguese, brashly patting women’s asses as it passed, rubbing shoulders with men who’d subtly slip paper money into its breast pocket—couples would ask for pictures with it, they’d whisper into its ears as they posed…. the party an immense success.

            Its owner was crestfallen. He felt found out but foolish, insignificant, as if all his efforts in the secret’s behalf were a waste. He was dizzy, had to lean against a wall when the guests were gone. 

            My life has been a waste, he said to the secret.

            “Never mind that,” said the secret. “I need to talk to you. I’ve done some things I’m ashamed of, and you’re the only one I can confide in.”

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Copyright 2025 Gerald Fleming

Gerald Fleming’s most recent book is The Bastard and the Bishop (prose poems, Hanging Loose Press, 2021). Other titles include One, The Choreographer, Night of Pure Breathing, and Swimmer Climbing onto Shore. New work is forthcoming in On the Seawall, Best American Poetry, and others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area most of the year.