Ficlets

A Mean Wind From Unkind Places

Incessant drone and rattle. It’s a mean wind from unkind places, locked up and chained up out west somewhere that got itself out and climbed the mountain and rolled down this side and beats itself ragged and torn against the window like it wants back in again. It keeps slipping through the peeling seal at the bottom, bringing tiny dusty balls of snow in onto the sill where they roll and melt into pinpricks of dew in the yellow light of the floorlamp.

I’m surprised, honest I am, the power hasn’t gone. When the ice brings the lines down, there goes the heat and light and all this shack will have going for it is that the wind can only get its fingernails under the windowframe.

The temperature will drop, and I will face a conundrum. A Catch-22, Heller called it in that book.

See, if the heat goes and I leave my gloves off, my fingers will be too numb for me to do much of anything with them. If I put my gloves on, my finger won’t fit through the trigger guard and I still won’t be able to use the gun.

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