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I decided to enter my neighbors house uninvited. They weren’t very secretive about the state of their general household security and I knew for a fact, the back door was always unlocked. For that matter, the front door was usually open as well. My mom was a nurse and frequently on the night shift. She slept during the day while my dad was out selling houses. It was the 80’s - injury and the whereabouts of children was usually a concern after-the-fact. For us young ones, mischief and floppy band aids kept us busy daily. My sister was five years older (still is) and probably resented being in charge of my safety so, she pretty much left me alone. My brother took even less interest in me, unless I showed up on his turf unannounced. Seems he didn’t like his snot-nosed, rat-tailed little sister jumping out of the bushes while he and his friends took turns peeing on spiders. As I got older though, and my friends got cuter, aka bustier, he minded less and less, eventually crashing a few of my summer afternoons. But not this time. I was alone. The day was hot and full of butterflies, bug bites and promise. I had no idea where the neighbors were, and clearly, they had no idea where I was or, that I was about to find the naked people in their house.

It was almost too easy. I walked out my back door into our large open yard, eying my surroundings as though I had just opened the hatch to my space ship after an emergency landing. These were the days when fences were considered rude, and backyards were too big for firm borders. The coast was clear. I skipped across the yard, bounded up the steps of the neighbors back porch and pulled gently on the screen door. It squeaked once, then gave way. One scrawny leg at a time I slipped into the kitchen of the comfortable split level house. It was empty. This felt like the perfect opening to a Disney movie where adults existed in the periphery and children were left to survive on their own -  free and wild. I was in. I closed the door behind me.

Jewelry, money, clothes, it was all there. But I wanted none of it. What I wanted held deeper meaning. I was desperate to find secrets and to see this family up close. Perhaps this was the beginning of my writer’s curiosity. With no one around, I could look at what I wanted, for however long I wanted, and make my assumptions - in private, no adults curating what I was allowed to know. I swept quickly through the bedrooms, paying little attention to the clothes strewn about, the dusty plants, even the day-old underwear. Somehow I knew better than to go into drawers. I moved through the upstairs like a helicopter pilot weaving in and around mountains on a search and rescue. I’d know what I was looking for when I saw it. The family photos and stashed liquor I had already found during previous visits at neighborhood parties, when I had been snooping in a group with other kids. But I was sure there was more to see here. 

The kitchen was mostly clean and the countertop displayed an impressive amount of junk food. I didn’t dare touch any, even though I knew this family would have given me whatever I wanted. They were from Newfoundland. Fun, generous, trusting, and brimming with that unwavering sense of community, a bit foreign to our buttoned-up WASP-y ways. Did I mention fun? Their parties were epic and often included seafood flown in from the east coast. Tents were set up across their yard, and ours, with games of horseshoes and tables covered in loaded paper plates squeezed in between. Guests wandered freely between the yards while the imprint of plastic straps from woven lawn chairs throbbed across their thighs. Men were shirtless, bottles were stubby, and the ladies were loud. I could feel the energy of this sparkling family in the house that day, even though it was empty and still. Then I spotted it. The exact sort of discovery I had been hoping for. Naked people … on a Rubik’s cube. A child’s toy perverted into a dirty little game. It was magnificent! Just sitting on the coffee table. In the living room! My living room coffee table had an antique candy dish, a few well chosen books and some dried flowers in a ceramic vase. THIS was outstanding.

I grabbed the smutty cube and ran down the stairs, heart pounding as though a pack of hungry dogs were at my heels, salivating over the treat in my hands. At the bottom of the stairs was a little door that led into a cramped and dark crawl space. Too small for Harry Potter, but just right for me. I tucked in, leaving the small door open just a crack. Under a sliver of light, I worked on that Rubik’s cube. The thrill of twisting the rows to the left, then the right, then up, then down, in order to complete the image of a curvy lady ...or an oiled up man, entangled on a velour blanket before my eyes was not like any puzzle experience I had ever had to date. A Gumball machine or hot air balloon over Tuscany was the extent of our tabletop puzzle collection. Now the task of completing a regular Rubik’s Cube, with sides of solid blue, white, yellow, orange and red, seemed as disappointing as a stale piece of spelt toast for breakfast rather than a thick Belgian waffle dripping in syrup. Waffle every time please. Was it too much to hope my school would up its toy game? How would I ask for one of these for Christmas? Was this a stocking item or did it belong under the tree? Boobs and testicles or primary colours? I was young, rippling chests and pubic hair had my attention.

I don’t know exactly how long I worked on that Rubik’s cube but I only ever managed to finish a disturbing Picasso looking orgy on a couple of sides. It was fun. And bad. And wrong. I definitely spent some time snooping around in the rest of their crawl space but to this day, no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember what else I found. A dead body? Wedding album? Viking coins? Cocaine? Regardless, nothing was nearly as interesting as that Rubik’s cube … and those people. My sister babysat the kids in this house quite regularly and I started to wonder, had she played with this Rubik’s cube before too? Or did she play it cool and walk on by, only nudging it slightly out of the way in order to put down a bowl of chips for movie time. I wanted this discovery for myself. The pervert neighbors hadn’t pulled anything over on me.

Something drew me in that day and made me cross the yard. I was too young to have any ill intent, but old enough to prepare a rationale defending my innocence if caught. B’n E? Huh? Whatever could that be? I assumed I was weird, with slight criminal tendencies, and that when left alone, my weirdness grew stronger when fed by opportunity. I now know it was curiosity that happened to meet up with a few hours of free time. I had what every other kid had - the urge to discover the world for myself, without adults giving me their version. I needed to know things - about people and who they were behind the curtain. What makes us all tick? You could have searched my house high and low for decades and you would never have found something like that. I looked. I spent many afternoons rooting through boxes in our own crawl space, digging around drawers and jewelry boxes, making up stories about everything I found. I told myself that some things were incredibly valuable or had mystical powers because I could feel the heat in my hands.  I imagined black and white photos of unknown family as royalty one day, and outlaws the next.  Whatever I needed my family to be that day in order to feel interesting was within my power. I was making sense of the world by hunting for evidence of life beyond my own. A writer or voyeur, either way, I enjoyed looking without being seen.

Now, peering into other people’s lives is not only commonplace, it’s encouraged. Social media is a window with an endless view to a production of life. Supervised voyeurism feels more like a flight simulator than a transatlantic adventure in your own plane. At the cottage, I see minutes tick by with one eye while the other eye watches my youngest son glued to his iPad. Behind him a massive black raven squawks high up in a tree, an army of chipmunks race from trunk to trunk and hot yellow light bounces off thousands of green leaves in a gentle June breeze, the wind occasionally strong enough to blow the pine needles at his feet into piles. Our memories of this afternoon, this place, will be vastly different. What I wouldn’t give to see him sneaking into the neighbors cottage right now, lured by uncontrollable curiosity to get into things...in real life. 

I want to put a sticker on his screen that says Dance like no one is watching but the idea that interesting things happen undocumented is unthinkable to the latest generation. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to put it on Tik Tok, does it matter?

That Rubik’s cube left on the coffee table was not meant for me to see. It was not placed in the perfect light and edited to make each square on the cube equally fleshy. It was a gold nugget in a riverbed of silt. I learned that day that sexuality and nudity is expressed or lived differently for different people. It could be a part of everyday life in ways I never imagined. What kind of people have something like that? Is there something wrong with them? With my conservative family? It doesn’t even matter what conclusions I made, what matters is that a door was opened for me that day. I learned that people are full of surprises and just as puzzling as that cube. We are more than the stories we choose to tell, or photograph. Good people have dirty Rubrik’s cubes. Busy IG accounts can be the work of lonely people who might need your time more than your thumbs up and heart eyes. Geniuses post offensive memes sometimes because they don’t know what else to do. Poor people can look rich and sad people have exceptionally deceptive smiles. Holding that Rubik’s cube in my little hands is burned in my memory because I lived it. I sat with this secret, my pornographic break and enter, for years without understanding it. I forgot how the experience obliterated my small minded view of the world. There were more fenceless yards beyond my neighbors waiting for me. The world was endless and the people within it had more to teach me. I worry my kids will like and tap and forget to do. Now when curious kids, or future writers, feel the urge to snoop, they will do so without sweaty palms or the thrill of stepping out of a fantastical space ship onto a new landscape. They will get too much, too fast, and not be able to sit in a darkened crawl space with a single discovery.

Another bright afternoon passed, the sun suddenly low. My back ached from sitting so long and my fingers needed a stretch after all the typing. Darn blog. I’ve been on my computer for hours now, looking out at the landscape, romanticizing my oddball coming of age. Across from me I see the indent on the cushion of the chair where my son was sitting. I have no memory of when he left me. Probably inside on his iPad watching soccer tricks. Watching. I’ll talk to him tomorrow about unplugging more. Who spends a beautiful afternoon on their device? I glance at the neighbors cottage and pause for a moment, letting my imagination drift to their coffee table. With my charger in hand, I push the top down on my laptop, wondering where the day went.

By Carol Sloan

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