When is a bag of cans just a bag of cans?
A chore, a routine task. An unpleasant, but necessary thing, made more so by ten degree weather. Not particularly cold for a Northerner, but not exactly warm either. A gentle snow falls from the dark sky above. No stars are visible this night. A crescent moon should be in the southeast, but it too is obscured. Grey skies and silence. That is what living more than an hour from civilization means on a night like tonight.
The jingling of empty soda cans is momentarily silenced as my footsteps stop dead. What was that? An animal? Snow falling from the roof? No, just a military 747 making an early morning trip from New York to Newfoundland. Nothing too unusual. Danger dismissed, the task resumes. Thus the snow creaked beneath boots and the cans jingle once more. The second of three trips from the house to the garage, moving recycle bags in the wee hours of the morning...or would it still be night? Four is not the time to debate such things, even for an insomniac. No, four is the time to sleep, or for an insomniac, do last minute chores that will prevent nagging...
The new truck is painted with a layer of growing albino-grass, frozen crystals such as they are, obscuring black paint beneath. An open door to the structure behind the metal behemoth promises an end to such things and a return to rest, even if it is not sleep. Within are paper bags, both empty and those yet full, awaiting their kin. A snowblower too resides therein, its impeller frozen, more work for the morning. A Miata with its top down, a thin layer of dust atop its black paint, accumulated from six years of neglect. A shame, but such is life when its owner is rendered bedridden. The thought makes me sigh. A ladder. How a simple thing can effectively end one’s life. Two-and-a-half times more people die yearly from falls than by gun, my random access memory reminds me, trying its best to distract me. The odd thought distracts me for but a moment, then back to the house. Last trip, I remind myself.
An empty pizza box and an empty twelve-pack of soda in one hand, the flashlight in the other. A brief struggle with the door. The cold weather has warped the door jam slightly, it happens. A quick pull sounds a secure latch and a return to the cold. Only one of the floodlights is working. I’ve been meaning to fix it, but that would mean getting up on a ladder. I never did like heights, even before the accident. Now… Now I seem to find any excuse to keep them out of sight, behind the garage at all times. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose… It isn’t laziness, not really. Says the lazy one, I suppose. More like a benign neglect. Perhaps if left alone and untended they might disappear? Right. I know that is unlikely. I suppose that means I must work once the sun comes up. A little clutter there to clean, a vacuuming, clearing the snowblower to tend to the driveway, replacing the floodlight. It is surprising how quickly the list grows when one thinks about it. Like the bricks in a wall. Little things adding up to steal away time from one’s day, when all you want to do is spend it with your family and perhaps get in a little writing.
A few more days of the mundane and then, the weekend. Two days spent with the little brother, a short roadtrip to take him to a doubleheader in Manchester. Goodness, he loves hockey, it makes the hours of driving all worthwhile to see him cheer when they score. What a simple pleasure. Then the afternoon sparring session on Sunday. Goodness, a month is too long not to practice a martial art. I hope my left foot doesn’t act up again. Not to mention my guilty pleasure, stories of technicolor joy upon four hooves, dancing about the idiot box. If that is the price I have to pay, so be it. Totally worth every braincell, I say.
Walking past the car in the drive and then the truck, only to see the shadow. A passing of darkness in the loft window, gone whence light touches it. Curiosity draws both eyes and the metal flashlight to bear, but nothing. What an odd thing. The door is open, still, but surely no one would sneak in while I came and went...right? A puff of breath and then silence. No noise. No one walking on the plywood floor of the loft, I would surely hear it outside. Still, that moment when the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, that sixth sense honed to a razor’s edge was screaming that something was terribly wrong. Of course, curiosity trumps caution. When doesn’t it? Again, self-assurance that nothing is amiss leads me on.
One boot on the threshold and the second on concrete, is all the headway that I manage, before I am blindsided and forcefully knocked into the door. There is a flare of pain and my eyes go cross as the world whites out. A quick punch does manage to knock the offender back. The seconds after the attack crawl at a snails pace, all my focus falling upon whom it is that tackled me. What stands there is a mint-green creature, something that looks suspiciously like a particularly human-obsessed unicorn that goes by the name of Lyra Heartstrings. A personal favorite of mine. It possesses the same nearly sage colored mane and white stripe, the same aquamarine coat, and wheat-gold irises. Only, this particular being has a particularly mad, frenzied look in her eyes that speaks of something drastically amiss. Something frightening. Magic crackles about her horn like arcing electricity, bubbling down its length like pudding cooked too long.
As the mare lowers her head, leveling a charged horn, time slows yet further, heartbeats feel like minutes. There is no hesitation, only action. It is but a flash and situation comes to resolution, but also an eternity. Hooves slide across concrete, widening her stance. The shout of a battlecry. A green flash of magic. Fingers tighten around metal flashlight, as limbs shove off of metal door. Flesh and bone and metal meet in an instant. There is a loud thump, followed by a clatter of spilling cans and the chime of a few lengths of roof-rake pole striking concrete. A final gasp of frozen breath sounds like a silent avalanche. A morbid silence descends. Snow falls and the world is, for but a brief moment, still.