Bonhaven was a patchwork of narrow streets, with houses adorned by ornate, overhanging balconies, allowing families to soak up a little sun on wintry mornings, or enjoy a cool drink in the summer evening breeze.
Neighbourhood competitions developed – loveliest balcony garden, best Christmas display. The neighbours of Bonhaven chatted, balcony to balcony, so close were the houses. Their balconies connected them.
But there came a time when along the balconies spread murmurs of discontent, then rumours of government corruption and the first sparks of protest and rebellion.
That was when they announced the crippling balcony tax, and the Bonhaven revolution was extinguished.
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This story is for Friday Fictioneers, a weekly flash fiction challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The picture prompt made me think of houses with bricked-up windows – a response to the window taxation which existed in Britain and France from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries – longer in France. Click on the picture below to read more.
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