Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Monday, November 18, 2013
30 Days of Prose: Day 16: The 47 Year Old Snowman


The 47 Year Old Snowman

Source: http://bit.ly/1cEdcix
Every winter, the time-bent man makes his way outside with a bag full of hats, scarves, and buttons. For 20 years, two snow-folk have been built in his front yard. One was tall and especially portly; I say especially portly because no snow-person will ever have the physique of photo-shopped, emaciated Victoria's Secret models. 

Yes, the one was tall and especially portly, he held a pipe in his mouth, and a bushy mustache made of an old comb adorned his top lip. Well, if he had lips, that's where his mustache would be. On his head sat a flat cap of gray wool, around his neck a Gryffindor scarf hung just tightly enough to grant warmth without being uncomfortable. His bottom half, as was so often the case, was bare, except for the handful of buttons that made to form a frosty jacket around his chunky, chilly frame, and the gnarly maple branches he used for arms. 

Next, the man turned to building the companion. She, like him, was curvy as could be, though her diminished height made her easier to build. For the last 20 years, this was the snow-person the man focused on. He knew exactly how the buttons were supposed to sit, exactly how her own Gryffindor scarf was supposed to be tied; delicately but tighter than her friend's. For her eyes, he used mother of pearl buttons that, with the blue-white sheen of the snow, took on a distinctly sapphire sheen. Gingerly, he sat the red beret atop her head, one of those cheap suckers they give at the doctor's in her mouth,  and placed her own slimmer, yet stronger, arms into place. She was perfect. 

He took a step back to look as he had for decades; he did so alone as he had for three years. She looked as she always had; strong and happy. Then, he looked to his own crystalline analog; pudgier around the mid-section, haphazardly wearing a scarf too loosely; he'd apparently lost his eyes. 

Sighing, he took a few black buttons from his pocket, roughly shoved them in the spots they should be, and stared into the opalescent circles for too long. At length, he turned away from the snow-folk, their arms linked hand-in-hand, as the man must have placed them absent-mindedly. Walking inside, he turned on the Christmas lights, warmed up a mug of cocoa, and turning on a showing of "It's a Wonderful Life" in the background, he sat and looked out the window, as he had for 20 years.








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Thursday, November 14, 2013
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II

I keep running for what seems too long. Eventually, a fear creeps over me that maybe I'm chasing a hunger pang. The mistake, I think, has lost me my camp. Just as I turn back, the insistent trill echoes some ways ahead in the direction I'd been heading. Despite thinking better of it, I charge again toward my feline friend. 

Finally, I come to a clearing. The cat, for his part, sits atop a rock breaking like the Rockies out of the snow-covered landscape, his foot held high at a diagonal angle above his head as his tongue works furiously.

"Well...this was worth it!" I say dryly after a few minutes of staring blankly at the strange little beast. The cat being a cat goes right on licking, changing legs when he's satisfied the other is clean. Tired of standing in my growing disenchantment, I walk over to the cat's mountainous perch, letting myself sink down to the ground, my back feeling every chilled contour of the rock. As I quickly fall asleep, warm steps make their way down my shoulder, then down my chest, until they finally reach my lap where a toasty, purring ball of fluff takes his place.

--

The next thing I know, a furred gauntlet is toying with my earlobe.

"Wha...what?" I demand groggily, craning my neck around to where the little devil is perched.

Naturally, the creep responds with a rough vulgarity, swiping me again with unnaturally powerful little paws.

"What do you.." I start, when I finally see what the little fellow wanted all along.

Breaking from the treeline across the arctic clearing, a second cat, this one clad in patches of orange and white, a black, velvetine belt wrapped around its midsection, is sprinting toward us with, of all things, a miniature Santa cap atop its little head. 

As the new cat arrives, my gray keeper leaps down to meet her. Stepping forward until their noses almost touch, the two exchange pleasantries, seemingly holding an entire conversation silently between themselves. The conversation apparently comes to the topic of me as the two turn their heads to stare, the new one issuing her own challenge; the gray fellow follows suit with his typical rumble.

I think to ask again what they want, but the best I can muster is, "Fine! Whatever!" and defeated I go quiet.

They continue to stare until, finally, as if on queue, the calico takes off, followed by my friend. For some reason, my legs begin churning in hot pursuit. Running through the chill, back the way the tricolor had come, the night seems to grow darker around us.

Crossing into the thicket, the wood remains dark, deadened until, when we're some twenty feet in, the forest bursts into life. Garland, lights strung like captured blue and white fireflies break the midnight silence as they illuminate the world endlessly around them.

My feline friends must have expected the change for they take the explosion of color in stride. For my part, the surprise knocks me from my feet, eyes going wide with a mix of confusion and fear. Just when I think I've recovered, the wind is again taken forcefully from my chest. 

The little graymane and my tricolored acquaintance approach on either side of a beautiful arctic fox. The air audibly leaves my mouth as the creature's opaline eyes meet my own.

"Relax, human. You are among friends here," she assures me.

Taken over by disbelief, the world swims and leaves me.




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Tuesday, November 12, 2013
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Prologue

         I don't really remember how I got here; not to this exact spot. A poorly made plan led to a walk in the woods that was meant to end almost as quickly as it started. Yet, as often happens with plans, this one ran directly off course, and now I lay alone, struggling to keep warm while the blanket of crystalline chill falls thickly over me.

I

         I wake with a warm nudge. Confused and groggy, I sit up to find a brightly moonlit night. Cool blues and glassy whites work in unison to accent the sap scented boughs, subdued yet verdant pines stretching into the night-fogged distance. Thinking the warm nudge nothing more than a phantom, a symptom of an active dream not remembered, I lay back down in the sharp down of pine needles.

Some time later, I am awoken by another warm nudge; this one insistent, somehow demanding. As before, I sit straight up to find the color of the oil-painted winter shaping the landscape. Of course, this time is different. This time a cobalt-colored cat dressed in crushed velvet stares back with blue eyes that would make the Gilmore Girls' pale in comparison.

As we exchange stares, the small beast becomes verbally abusive, assaulting me with long, guttural trills from his thickly furred throat.

"What?" I ask.

My quadripedal vistior answers with another violent trill before bounding off into the distant thicket. As you might expect, I return back to my evergreen slumber. As you might further expect, the sleep wasn't meant to last long.

In what seems only seconds later, a sharp jolt shoots warmly through my cheek, immediately sending me behind a nearby pine for shelter. Looking around for the 'coon or fox who'd finally decided I'd make a fine meal, I find only my cobalt friend, licking himself viciously, no doubt trying to get my taste from his mouth. At length, my assailant quits his shower and again engages me in a staring contest.

"What?" I ask for the second time tonight.

He doesn't bother to dignify the question with even his violent grumble this time. Instead, he shoots again like a bolt of smokey lightning back through the tree-line.

"Fine," I sigh, and barrel through the trees after the little creep.





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