No stops for the broken

Thick flakes pattered the windshield, muffling the mindless wipers. Inside the cab of the salt licked truck crisp air stirred only with his soft breath which was muted by the cold of the scant daylight. Lifeless eyes fought the beats and clatter of the pickup, piercing the white of the outside. A look of astonishment and abandonment scared his face, as the wisps of ghostly fields tacked and flickered in the windows like an old time cinema. The roll and dip of the meadows ventured a thousand times passed him unnoticed. Some dozen inches of snow that canvassed his driveway burped and gurgled under the tires as he slowed and came to a rest before a lonely house. A veil of winter buried the small home. What was once a chattering tree of the yard was silenced by the shortening days. The hum and stir of life, the pungent odors of spice and cinnamon yielded to the must of the rising frost. The colors of the fall had finally poured their last crimsons out as an offering to the ghostly long nights.

One salt charred door winced open. A thick boot dropped from the truck and sat still for just a moment. Mud mixed with ice crept up the laces of the sodden boots. He forced another leg from the truck, sitting cowardly as if grasping for a lost thought. One breathy sigh pushed through the high collard jacket tossing vapors through the cinched bulwark that shielded the frozen death. The clap of rusted metal startled the lone snow hare taping out its jagged trail in the distant fields. The pickup was behind him. Few wisps of hair tossed gently on his fleshy crown that poked through the collars and wraps. A man aged by life more then time fiddled with slurry of keys as he patiently made his way to a grey door of what was once a home. Despite the muted sensations of woolen hands he massaged the worn key that loosely fit the lock and tumbler to the house. For a moment the man swollen with the layers that preserved his life-giving warmth, stood before the door, before the home, before the emptiness that surrounded him. A pause, a low glance by his shoulder as if some silent specter caught his attention, a breath, and the crack of the opening door clapped in the silence only to be washed away by nature’s cold breath.

As the man step in and barracked the pains of the outside behind him, the hollow raised floor announced his arrival to a breathless house. Two griping stomps roared out despite the thatched doormats vein battle for silence. Only his tired feet where now free of the last vestiges of the preceding hours. As he pealed the moist jackets and mittens his true humanity peered bashfully upon a room as if expecting a warm salute. Without the edifice to shield the elements the bent, defeated shell whispered only the honesty of frailty, the ephemeral state of mortality.

Placing the final item of apparel patiently on a low standing bench before the door, he looked up for a first as if seeing a foreign dwelling. A moment passed and he remained unstirred. Finally a movement. He worked his way, now familiar with his surroundings in a reminiscent way, toward a lonely turntable. Chopin’s Ballade in G-minor lay waiting to talk to the still room, and the warm red woods of the walls seemed wanting, needing of the vitality the soul of music bestows. Click, he began the wobbled spin and lifted the arm looking for a place to set the needle, and then paused. Beside the meshed speakers still silent, looked on a simple portrait. The delicate austere frame complemented the chaste decor of the home. No ornament just necessity; a necessity that spoke for contentment. Broken charcoal still dry filled the fireplace. A simple couch evenly worn accompanied a small round table, just room for two. Warn spines of thumbed books nestled together on a shelf behind the turntable. But it was the portrait the defeated him. He stood as the record wore on as if holding on to time, yearning to bring the past forward with each silent turn. But it was not to happen this way.

The Needle tore across the record as the man wrapped twice on the low table the held the turntable. Opening clenched fist he pugnaciously slapped the records dial off and flung himself around. Looking as if to repair to the kitchen in haste he wobbled for a few tilted steps, as if intoxicated by the linoleums quaint flowers that tastefully distracted ones eye from the worn yet orderly appliances. Turning back slowly the fallen hazel eyes blinked once through the tufts of grey behind which they where sheltered. His continence shifted to shame, and he lifted the small portrait. Through his pale twisted reflection in the thin glass he could see two happy people. These people belonged to this home, and for a moment the man was lost, as if he made a mistake being here. His eye deepened as shadowy pools. The mans shoulders rose slowly. Silence, deep winter silence, sterilized the moment.

A lone clock in a distant room kept time as if to tease the man for his vitality. A sentient reminder of the shallow brooks of life, ever-changing, pulling some worn stones on and abandoning others. As the mans shoulders fell a knee bucked and he braced himself on the small couch. Lowering himself with one arm, his eyes remained faithfully fixed on the photo. And there he sat silent, bent as if crushed by an illusive weight, the weight of emptiness. Frail, alone, clutching only the delicately framed portrait another tick of the clock went unnoticed. Thick flakes pattered the windows of the house. Crisp air only stirred with his soft breath, which was muted by the cold of the death of daylight. The distant clock marched on as if to mock, sharing nothing with each incessant lunge of the hand but the inevitability that for him another moment would follow.