Thursday, December 24, 2009

"Frost"

I started with excuses after the leaves turned, feigning fevers, inventing injuries, anything to stay inside. No excuse, though, could outlast the winter. Eventually my parents would push me outside, coated and scarved, to play.

It never moved past the woodline. It would stare, scabrous with frost, clutching a cracked broom, the wind trying to sweep the tattered top hat from its head. Its coal-black eyes cut me to the marrow.

I didn't know why it always returned. Perhaps it envied the house’s warmth. But I knew the gin on mother's breath, father's nights away. There was no warmth there.

7 comments:

S.D. Smith said...

Bravo, Master Eaton. That is chilling.

Chestertonian Rambler said...

Very nice.

Loren Eaton said...

Yay, thanks guys! Did you all get the yuletide reference?

B. Nagel said...

A rather frosty tale for the relatively mild Southern winter. ;)

Nice creepy factor too.

Scattercat said...

The reference? It seems... familiar.

Loren Eaton said...

Reading that story, I'm doubly glad I live in a climate that never reaches freezing point!

C. N. Nevets said...

Very atmospheric!