Winter Dust
As the horizon drank the last of the sunlight, Winter casually sauntered into town, like a portly guest late to the party. It settled down into the town's unkempt lawns and streets like they were an old familiar chair, and with relief exhaled, sending the last of Autumn's dried leaves from their branches. Even though Winter was a little tardy, it had telegraphed ahead with plenty of cool rain, which now froze into a glassy membrane covering the town.
The dried leaves scuttled along the frozen streets, passing by houses with warm orange windows that smelled of baking, dark houses whose occupants were off on a beach somewhere, and a little gray house that stared pensively out into the street.
The house looked as though it were putting great effort into solving a problem posed long ago, and wasn't closing in on a solution anytime soon. It's windows were perfectly square spectacles that saw everything, and if this little gray house could ask a question it would be, "Does omniscience make every question a foolish question or an understandable question?"
To the side of the house a bare oak tree scratched the roof, like a crooked and curious hand. It had been scratching the same spot for so long the roof had become damaged. Shingles were curled and broken, exposing the weathered cracks beneath. A small pool of water gathered in one of the nooks and leaked through the cracks and into the house.
Inside the skull of this pensive little house the rainwater beat away at a dulled pea-sized dent in the floor. Across the room sat a little clock without a face, or rather, its face had been replaced by a magazine cutout of one of those revolving targets you see at the circus; the kind where they strap a pretty girl to the front and throw knives at her. And, with each tick the table rotated.
The dripping rain water and tick-tocking of the clock echoed like a miniature game of ping-pong taking place at Deer Cave. Stuck in the middle was an old man in an easy chair. He looked comfortable and serious.
The face of the old man was as old men's faces are, wrinkled and grizzled with stubble. Each wrinkle a brush stroke of emotion from the man's past. Every single laugh line and brow furrowing its own stroke and accounted for.
His eyes, dry and a faded blue, were neatly nestled into several layers of wrinkles, and the old man's crows feet looked to have been applied by an actual crow and a heavy one at that. The foot prints of this fat little crow continued in a listless stroll across the old man's countenance.
The knuckles on his right hand were swollen. This was a man who undoubtedly worked with his hands earlier in his life. Patterns of scars in various sizes shed light on other stories about what sort of work this was.
Dust collected on his forearms.
The dried leaves scuttled along the frozen streets, passing by houses with warm orange windows that smelled of baking, dark houses whose occupants were off on a beach somewhere, and a little gray house that stared pensively out into the street.
The house looked as though it were putting great effort into solving a problem posed long ago, and wasn't closing in on a solution anytime soon. It's windows were perfectly square spectacles that saw everything, and if this little gray house could ask a question it would be, "Does omniscience make every question a foolish question or an understandable question?"
To the side of the house a bare oak tree scratched the roof, like a crooked and curious hand. It had been scratching the same spot for so long the roof had become damaged. Shingles were curled and broken, exposing the weathered cracks beneath. A small pool of water gathered in one of the nooks and leaked through the cracks and into the house.
Inside the skull of this pensive little house the rainwater beat away at a dulled pea-sized dent in the floor. Across the room sat a little clock without a face, or rather, its face had been replaced by a magazine cutout of one of those revolving targets you see at the circus; the kind where they strap a pretty girl to the front and throw knives at her. And, with each tick the table rotated.
The dripping rain water and tick-tocking of the clock echoed like a miniature game of ping-pong taking place at Deer Cave. Stuck in the middle was an old man in an easy chair. He looked comfortable and serious.
The face of the old man was as old men's faces are, wrinkled and grizzled with stubble. Each wrinkle a brush stroke of emotion from the man's past. Every single laugh line and brow furrowing its own stroke and accounted for.
His eyes, dry and a faded blue, were neatly nestled into several layers of wrinkles, and the old man's crows feet looked to have been applied by an actual crow and a heavy one at that. The foot prints of this fat little crow continued in a listless stroll across the old man's countenance.
The knuckles on his right hand were swollen. This was a man who undoubtedly worked with his hands earlier in his life. Patterns of scars in various sizes shed light on other stories about what sort of work this was.
Dust collected on his forearms.