Re: Writing Exercise: Enslaved
I hate walking home at night.
I don't much know if it's the trees, or the cold air. The way sounds seem to carry across a person's ears and shatter their sense of silence. It could be the stories of ghosts and creatures galore I had drilled into my head as a child or it could be that I just never really got over the dark. All that in play, I find myself walking home this evening with eyes wide and ears perked, imagining all manners of things that might break from the shadows and gobble me whole.
It's really a silly notion. The chances of such things are probably slim to none and out of the dozens of times I've ever had to make my way back at such hours, never once have I tripped up on anything more than my own flighty mind. I, to date, have little sense of what it's like to be eaten. Far as I can remember I've never had to run for my life and to be honest, I happen to be proper rubbish at running general. I mean really, a man of my size shouldn't be good at running. I happen to be quite fond of food and I suppose though it wouldn't hurt to lose a few pounds off the midsection, I don't see any real reason to replace a healthy appetite for the unpleasant act of recreational exercise.
It was about at this point in my train of thought that the winds began to shift and I suddenly became all too aware of the cold air that swept across my face. I griped up the collar of my coat and pressed on. The warm breath from my lips shifted against the wool of the overcoat and fogged the ragged bifocals I had hugging my nose. This just wasn't much my night really. I removed the lenses from my eyes, shifting my gaze into a fuzzy hue of light and color. I rubbed the cold glass against my shirt and squinted as the frames swept back behind the ears.
The eyes took a moment to readjust and as they did, to be honest, I wasn't all too keen on what I saw. The dark skyline played to a collage of purple mixed amongst a pattern of blackened clouds. Mayhaps it had been the cold in the air or the racing mind that seemed dead set that I would be something's dinner, but I hadn't noticed the smell of rain in the air.
And I hate the rain.
If there's anything worse than being cold it's being wet and cold. The concept tuned in my head like a bad piece of meat to the lining of one's stomach. I took what comfort I could in once more pulling the collar of my coat to my ears. The lenses slowly began to haze and as I shifted a hand to clean them yet again, I'll be most damned if it didn't start to drizzle.
I felt a groan shift in my throat as I hurried my pace, stumpy legs skittering about in a jittered manner along the moist grass underfoot. As I pushed to hurry my pace, the sky seemed to do the same. Small drops of water became large ones and the slow trickle from the clouds very quickly spiraled into a hearty downpour. I felt my tongue curse within my mouth as I rubbed at my bifocals with the lining of a coat pocket.
It was about this time that I found the end of the grassy knoll as a plump foot sank to about mid shin into a cold puddle of mud. Normally I'd have taken this as the middle point of my journey as the old dirt road would from here take me home. This however was a special case. Dirt had become mud had become clay. My curses became more audible and I took a well deserved moment to cast them with flailing arms at the sky above me. I bit back a snarl that lodged into the back of my throat and threw my weight forward to release my foot from the depths of this subtle mud pit. Momentum, being the lovely thing that it is, pulled against the hold until finally my foot came free with a resounding pop.
The boot it was attached to however, did not.
I stumbled forward with the direction of the force as the creeping cold of the mud below became all too noticed against my now bare foot. Top heavy as I was, my stumble slowly became a stagger which spent little time becoming an outright fall. I felt the clay like mud of the cold earth below shift around me like a bitterly unwanted hug from a relative you'd not much care for. It seeped against my hair and soaked the folds of my wool coat straight down to the very bones beneath it. At this point I had stopped all presences of subtlety and had probably proceeded to fill my lungs with every manner of colorful language I could muster. For the good sake of tact, I'll not elaborate further.
It was against this every embracing pit of mud that I slowly came to realize that my glasses were not only wet and dirty, but were now completely missing from the grasp of my hand. I took the time to riffle around the muddy embankment to search despite my fuzzy gaze, but it slowly occurred to me that I was doing little more than sling mud. I felt a fist slap against the cold clay around me as I staggered to my feet. I had reached the dirt road… or rather it had reached me. My house was not far along the bend and if I hurried, surely no more matter of hellish irony would befall my weary mind.
I took my first step on naked foot and immediately regretted it. The cold shifted through the skin like a jagged blade and ran chills across my spine with far too little finesse. My clothes, now heavy with clay, pulled down on my body like bricks and the beating hail of rain cast fury against my face like the unbridled fists of an angry god. It was about this time that I had completely forgotten about the cold of it all. The concept of home was all my weary mind could focus on.
Eyes forward….
Head down…
Move foot…
Shiver….
Eyes forward….
Head down…
Move foot…
Shiver…
The mantra burned in my head as it churned against my mind like a winding train. It became my whole focus as I lost all concepts of place and time. It would be minutes, seconds even before I turned the road that took me to my porch. From there a hot pot of tea would be waiting for me. The heavy clothes on my back would accompany the wood in a warm and cozy fire pit. I could forget this day and all the hellish circumstance that came along with it. I'd drink down that warm pot of tea and slowly sway myself to the rhythm of the world into the loving embrace of sleep.
But now, I had to keep moving.
When I came upon the bend at the end of the road, it seemed to glow with a light that even my poor eyes could see. It was like a gift from the heavens, granted down upon my weary and undeserving soul. I praised every god I could think of and limped my heavy bones to the glorious icon of hope before me. A wide smile beamed across my face and for the first time that night I honestly found myself happy. Thrilled even that the night had pitted every concept of pain and misery against me. I had risen from the ashes, and I had risen victorious. The clomping shuffle of my feet became music upon my ears as the winding path closed its distance. The beating rain became was it's overture and the depthy boom of barking became the baseline that drove it all…. Wait…
Barking?
Understand you must that at this point; my senses had about all but failed me. My eyes, as you know, were everything but blind. My feeling had all but dried up in the cold of the world around me. The beat red nose on my face had closed up against icy winds galore. The only thing I had left to my humble slice of reality was the driving concept that home was just yards away from my grasp…
And the sounds of the angry dog that stood before my goal.
The neighbor next door was a charming lady that in her old age considered it a good idea to obtain a mastiff for better sense of protection. Not wanting to be mean to the giant heap of muscle and drool, she let in wander her yard and take free reign of the area. He was well fed, well kept and had a very healthy understanding that this neighborhood and everything in it… was his.
I felt a hard swallow shift in my throat. I knew that dog. I knew him well. Many upon many occasions I had emerged from my household to get the mail. On each of those occasions I was often greeted by a large horse of a dog that found mauling one's boots to be the best form of introduction. Normally I would have found such an act rather adorable and would have gladly offered a tribute of old shoes to the creature. I mean I love dogs. They're very hard to dislike, but patient as I am I do find myself drawing the line when a creature insists that the boots on your very feet are today's virgin sacrifice.
I thought my sense of feeling had all but left me this evening. But I very much felt the bullet like speed of that canine as it bowled into me.
My face hit the muddy earth of which I had become so familiar with once more and I felt the creature shift for my boot. Normally this would have been just an unpleasant feeling considering I happen to fancy heavy leather in my shoe wear. The creature would have taken hold, shake the offering in its all powerful maw for a moment and then trot home happy like to inform her owner of the beast it had vanquished today.
And he did. I just didn't happen to have a boot on that foot.
I felt myself scream. Tears streamed down my face and I cried havoc to the gods above that had abandoned me. I was too close, I had overcome everything and now, here I was: Drenched, shoeless and the oversized chew toy of a very healthy dog.
After a moment that aged me decades, I felt the canine's fangs shift from the muscles of my calf. The stinging pain of the wound seemed to light aflame my concept of feel all over again. The cold burned against my skin, the weight of the mud that cased me pulled down on my weary body, and the ever abundant concept of wet drenched my very soul. I slowly staggered to stand and limped my way through the gate and onto my porch. The night couldn't get any worse. I didn't even care about tea and a warm fire at this point. My hand reached for the door and I honestly considered the concept that I might just fall through the archway and pass out against the floor in all my drenched glory. My hand took hold of the knob and the cool metal slowly turned.
It was locked.