If you had nothing in life but a three-inch piece of string, what would you do with that piece of string and why?

It was Hera's last walk-through of the house she and Frank had shared for the past four years.  Her last chance to pick up what remained of hers, if anything.  She had been moving out for months before she even told Frank she was leaving.  He took it stoically, but he took everything that way.  Four years wasn't that long, but it was her first marriage and her first house.  It was up to Hera to sell the house--Frank owed her too much money to have a stake in it anymore, and he signed it over easily.  It was all so easy to leave.

Hera creaked up the wooden staircase to the second floor, looking at the lumpy, pale blue walls.  While she had been occupied doing laundry in the basement, Frank started pulling off the cheap wall paneling against her wishes.  By the time she heard the racket, he was too far along to put it back.  Frank left the panels in the hallway and stopped his unwanted project forcing Hera to pound out the tiny nails, haul the panels to the garbage, and pull the remaining panels off the living room, the parlor, and the rest of the stairwell.  Hera had to repair the damaged plaster the panels were hiding--the whole reason she didn't want them off--before sanding, painting, painting and repainting.

The bedrooms on the second floor were empty and smelling of pine floor cleaner.  Hera had to clean up after the ill-advised housemate Frank invited to live with them, only one year after their wedding.  When Peter had finally moved out, he left a pile of garbage, a cat, and a smell that turned out to be impossible to remove completely.

Hera creaked up the final, narrower set of stairs to the attic where she and Frank had their bedroom.  Her steps slowed as she turned the corner and ducked automatically around the angled roof lines.  The room only ever had two temperatures: hot or freezing.  This early evening was hot.  Hera looked around the now empty room.  Frank had taken the bed.  She knew he would, but didn't realize he had.  Remembering the long day they had choosing the king-sized monstrosity hit her harder than expected.  Hera hadn't cried much over the end of their marriage--after all, she had been the one to ask for it--but this final walk-though was so... final.  Their bed, their marriage bed, was gone.

Hera gasped in the close heat and fell to her knees in the middle of the attic room.  She sobbed until her head felt too heavy and she pressed it to the Berber carpet they had chosen, another pale blue that he had liked so much.  The knobby carpet pressed into her knees and elbows and forehead, leaving an impression.  Hera cried until she could barely breathe and lay gasping on her side.  She stared at the blank walls, at the closed windows, and at the expanse of carpet her now ex-husband had chosen.  Underneath, she knew there was a note to any future person who would eventually tear up the carpet.  It was a note commemorating their relationship, their love, their wishes for the future.  Hera ran her hand over the carpet, rubbing it like a mother consoling a crying child.  At her sideways angle, Hera saw a loose loop of carpeting.  Feeling drained and bemused, she pulled on it, and a three-inch piece of carpet came away.