The Intentional Community
from As It Were: The Long-Lost Blue-Noted Romance Yarn by Amos Bankhead
She’d been perusing the housing classifieds on Craigslist when she’d come across the ad.
It featured photos of a handsome antebellum mansion, and described an intentional community (all lowercase letters, she noted) comprising artists and activists and vegetarians and life coaches and Reiki practitioners and postpartum doulas-in-training. She'd grimaced and felt her heart sink upon reading it—but then the room was so beautiful, the location ideal, and the ad specifically stated that there was no obligation to participate in the community (which was written with a small 'c'), and so she figured she could be collegial and considerate to all and sundry while doing her own thing and hopefully everything would work out just fine.
She worked five days a week as a counselor at the VA clinic, and then for three hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings she volunteered at a local shelter. After long and taxing hours, she enjoyed coming home to the solace of her own space, and while she was sociable with the other residents, when she was at the house she opted to spend the majority of her free time reading quietly in her room.
One month in and she felt things becoming fraught. She'd participated in the de rigueur cooking rotation and attended at least two household dinners each week as her schedule allowed. She was tidy and respectful, played her music at low volume and within godly hours, squeezed the toothpaste tube from the bottom, and contributed without prompting to household upkeep, cleaning regularly and purchasing anything she noticed was in short supply without seeking recompense. But she did not go out of her way to be one of them, and thus there were ample cold shoulders and snitty remarks thrown her way. And then one day, after twelve stressful hours between the clinic and the shelter, she returned home positively beat and politely declined a rather bumptious invitation to the winter solstice celebration in the backyard. The Community bellwether went berserk in the face of the dissident's affront, treating her to an unhinged harangue in the foyer, culminating with final terms: fall in line or find new lodgings.
She understood, she said, and retired promptly to her room, where she packed up her books and belongings and called to rent a U-Haul, and in the dark of that night she loaded her life into the truck as the residents milled about, waging a whisper campaign and declining to lend a helping hand to a heretic and mortal enemy of all they held dear. With her things packed into the truck, she cleaned the room thoroughly, from top to bottom. She cleared any trace of cobwebs from the ceiling and corners; she Windexed the windows; she wiped down the baseboards; she swept and mopped the floor. The room was left sparking and spotless—but she Intentionally left one thing behind, for the consideration of the Community. In the dead center of the otherwise-empty room, on the hardwood floor beneath the antique chandelier, a single book: Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People.