The window

It’s a small slice of life that you get to witness, walking back and forth to your job and then back to your small apartment every day except Sundays. Twice a day you pass a bay window. It has blue lace curtains along the edges and plants sitting on top of stacks of books and papers. Every morning when you walk down that street, you are never early enough to see who lives there as the blinds are raised by the time you cross over. And you never see who closes the blinds at night because they are open always until after you pass, even late at night when everyone should be asleep.

It gives you a feeling of small comfort, after all, you live in a small open-spaced apartment. You don’t have room for plants or books or anything really, you live with a couch that folds out to your bed, you have 6 uniforms that you wear to your job, and a fun hoodie you wear on Sundays. A computer that wheezes and groans when you turn it on and a small tv that you bought for $15 dollars at a garage sale.

But you are alone.

You came here because of a promise of a job and friends, but the job turned sour and the friends disappeared when you had to take whatever you could. You are making it, but it never felt like home and seeing this one random place makes you wonder if you could somehow make your place your own.

Day after day you cross the street, even when it adds an extra 7 minutes to your walking commute to the job you don’t like, just to see into that window. And one day, it’s a Tuesday, the most ignored day of the week, when you see that there is now a cat sunning itself in the window. And the sight of the white belly and paws makes you do something you never thought you would, you stop at the door.

You don’t know why you are doing this, but you know if you don’t get some sort of human interaction, you will somehow do something you will regret. So after straightening your clothes, and wishing you were wearing anything but your work uniform, you knock on the door.

It slowly opens and the person who opens it, smiles with genuine delight. “I have been wondering when you would stop by, I’ve been waiting for you” And you take a deep breath and step into the room, warm and fragrant with the scent of lemon and cinnamon and the cat comes and winds around your ankles. And you know that now you are home.

The Bicycle

It was just after the festival opened for the weekend that the fluffy flakes of snow were noticed. They were lazily drifting down as though Mother Nature forgot that for this town they didn’t get snow till at least Halloween. In fact, the years that they wouldn’t have snow for Halloween always caused the mothers anguish since they would have already made the costumes with wool and layers because of the temperatures.

But this was the first weekend of September. Much much too early for snow, but the children were delighted. They ran and whooped, dancing through the lines for the fried dough and ice cream, screaming with laughter and spinning like they were a part of the snow as well. The couples that got on the Ferris Wheels were the ones that had the magical snowy kisses, the cold of their lips meeting for the first time with gentle flakes of snow mixing in their breaths.

But it was too early for snow.

That was what the old woman known simply as Granny kept saying. No one paid her any mind, after all with all that the world had been through in the past couple of years, why not enjoy the snow, enjoy the magic for one night before the worries came crashing down and made them wonder why now.

The majority of people could only last a few hours in the cold, after all, it was September. Most weren’t dressed in layers, most only had flip-flops or shorts on and when they felt their toes tingle and realized that they couldn’t feel their nose, they started leaving for their houses. Hoping that this would just melt away.

But it was too early for snow.

The next day it came as a shock, the snow, instead of melting away had piled up, higher and higher. And still, it snowed.

After three days there was a run on the grocery store and Clair was able to get some flour and more yeast because all the prepackaged bread was completely gone. At least she knew how to make bread, she thought as she walked slowly home.

Walking over the bridge in the middle of the afternoon was a new experience. It didn’t hurt that she never usually walked, especially in the snow, but she needed to get out, needed to have some sort of fresh air for her brain and mood. The snow still falling muffled everything so she could only hear the slight squeaking of her boots in the snow already on the ground, the clink of her buckle. And that was when she noticed it.

Propped up in the middle of the bridge, against the pole that the tourists usually would climb to take selfies, showing the river rushing below, the city rising up on either side and the mountains in the background, it was a popular site. But she had never seen a bicycle there before. Obviously, she had seen bicycles but never covered with this much snow. It looked as though it had been there for months, but Clair knew that it was probably there from the festival. She wondered what local had left their bike, after all, that was usually how they would get around in the good weather, and while she was wondering that she heard a tiny rustle and a small mee sound.

Bending down she noticed that there were 2 glowing eyes almost hidden under the pile of snow under the bike, it looked too small to be a wolf though they had been known to come into the town when they were desperate. She crouched down and held out her hand, and slowly what looked like a mound of snow came towards her. Clair realized at that moment that her mom’s stories about what might come in the snow were all true as the snow mound crept towards her and put its chin on her hand.

The monsters were real, they just were much tinier than what she had been expecting.