Snow-ish



11/24/10



I wrote this during Creative Writing class a couple weeks ago for the "snow" prompt. It came out a little strange. Opinions loved.


Photo: So it snowed over Thanksgiving. And for some reason there were rosebuds in the garden at the same time. Go figure. Is it Global Warming? Or is there something more sinister going on here....

The only thing left of the child’s sled is bright red tip, slowly drowning in a sea of white.

The man in the scarf stands perfectly still as the snow also takes the rooftops, the trees, the street. You might have thought he was frozen himself, a snowman created by the owner of the sled, perhaps, but for the flakes that melt with they touched his face and hands.

At last, he moves. A shake of the head causes snow to fall from his hat.

“Toys in the yard.” He knows better, and she should, too. Or has he forgotten everything he said to her?

Back in his mother’s house, in a place he is making himself think of as home, everything is carefully in its place. The tools, outlined in black marker on pegboard. The plant, with the pot carefully lined up to the ring by the sink. The fork he places right alongside the crack in the kitchen table every morning at 8:11.

But the man in the scarf isn’t at home, nor does he want to be. Despite the organization—and the sense of order that had once been in this house as well—there are too many drawbacks. A cranky, aging mother. The absence of the people he loves—loved—the most.

No, he prefers it out here. Out here where the snow muffles all sound, covers all his tracks. Out here where he can sneak back into the past.

The footprints he left earlier are gone now. Like he never existed.

But wait—he’s still here.

Why?

Tomorrow morning, the girl that lives here will come out, delighted at the fresh snowfall. Knowing her, she probably snuck out early to go sledding and her mother doesn’t know.  

The man with the scarf shakes his head again, lips cracking into what might have been a smile. He has seen this happen many times.

Realizing the sled was missing, he knows she will begin to dig for it. But she will dig in all the wrong places. She’ll check the easy spots first—under the tree. Her favorite cedar. The man with the scarf touches the scar on his hand where he accidentally nailed himself building the tree house that lives in it. And when she can’t find the sled there she will check behind the shed. But she will find only snow. At that, she’ll begin to cry. Those big tears were so easily triggered. But she wouldn’t be able to tell her mom what the problem is, no. She is not supposed to be outside.

Once she slips back inside, she’ll tell her mom that she is upset because her brother was mean to her.

The man in the scarf tilts his head back, looking at the uppermost window. The light is out. So are all the others. Each window a closed eye, seeing nothing. He wonders if the girl is reading in bed again with a flashlight, or if it’s too late for that. It’s hard to tell because the children’s mother likes going to bed early.  

No one is awake in that house. No one to kick him off the street. No one to watch as the sled is slowly smothered.  

Two deep holes are left where the man in the scarf was standing. He walks slowly forward, across the front yard, half expecting an alarm to go off.

The sled is only an inch or so under, and he picks it up. The snow bites his ungloved hand as he does so, but he ignores it, trying to scrape the threads clean with his fingernail. It doesn’t work, but there’s nothing else he can do.  

The man in the scarf walks the rest of the way to the house, trying to leave just the lightest footprints, and leans the sled against the stair railing.

When the girl was a toddler, he used to pack snow on it, forming a ramp. Then he would put her in a trash can lid and slide her down to where her mother was waiting at the bottom. And the one day she hadn’t been there, he’d slide the kid and she wouldn’t be there. Their timing was off, out of sync.

His sigh hangs in the air—an innocent looking wisp of white—and he walks back to the road.

Down that road, down another, leaving the house far behind.

It’s an awkward shift from past to present as he slips back into his mom’s house.

Ω

The front yard is pure white the next morning. A flat sheet, all but for the red plastic, sticking up like a flower in winter.

The girl finds it right away.