Stone Overcoat - Dead of Winter, 2005
Dead of Winter 2005
I could not see the moon or the stars anywhere in the sky when I staggered into Screaming Ridge that last time. The wind whistled through and bit at the skin of my head and my face and my hands and my feet. I did not wear a hat or gloves or a scarf or boots because I was beyond them. The last little while I had been surviving on whatever might come my way through the basement while I stayed with the casket. I had not seen Townes in so long I am not sure how long it had been and I hoped he was alive somewhere or if he had died that he had died in peace though I know there is very little peace in the world outside the one men and women think they rule over.
Every night I slept with the casket pressed up against me. Some nights I dreamed of fire crashing down from the sky upon great realms of the past and I dreamed of men and women and children screaming and running for their lives as great smoking rocks hurtled down upon their homes. I saw kings and queens sitting on their thrones and watching their cities turn to ash and were crushed into dust. The great pyramids and temples of kingdoms from a time before time were reduced to little more than nothing with only crumbled stone and shattered sarcophagi remaining as signs of their existence. Other nights I dreamt of the haze of diamond dust settling across and the sky with the sunlight become dimmer and dimmer until none remained or snowstorms lasting months and months on end and swallowing up whatever they fell upon. I dreamt of fools trying to survive in caves who thought at first they were lucky for having survived everything which had hurtled down on them and whether awake or asleep I laughed at that. Just how I once thought my luck had been good luck they thought their luck was good luck when they they hid in their caves. The visions mostly came while I was asleep but the curtain between awake and asleep and real and unreal had been mostly done away with and the empty sky seemed appropriate when I stumbled into Screaming Ridge that last time.
My guts cried out to turn around and to go back to my cabin and down into the basement and to grab the casket and to sink into the ash and soot which seemed to pile higher and higher every time I slept and every time I awoke. The thing which I thought had brought so much luck had actually brought me nothing but pain and nothing but rot and ruin. Aside from the burning in my belly stemming from the absence of the casket only a cold hunger gnawed at me. I do not know when I ate the last time or at least not beyond whatever poor creature had made its way near me. At first I made a catching sound in my throat every time I bit into a mouse’s neck but starvation can make a man do strange things just the same way as luck or drugs or alcohol can make a man do strange things.
As I wobbled along the sidewalk I saw men and women out for dinner or out for drinks and when they saw me their eyes went wide and they crossed the street. Every town has its drunk who disappears and every town has the man who wanders off into the wilds. Sometimes those men make it back and sometimes they never come back. In some ways I am both the drunk and the wanderer. I am the man who became drunk on his own fortune and wandered off into a haze. A hard shove sent me to the ground and above me I heard someone call me a ragtag son-of-a and a hard kick barreled into my ribs. I recognized the voice of Jarrett Kellee. My luck was still running its course and I did not know which current pulled me in which direction. A punch to my face spun me around and another kick flattened me. I heard more MF this and MF that and I heard all other manners of words I do not want to write down. There were so many times I gave J-A-double R-E-double T K-E-double L-double E the benefit of the doubt and where I said he must have had a sad life and that is what drove him to behave the way he did and I think that might still be true but a man’s life does not excuse him of his actions.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees and watched Jarrett pull his foot back to kick me and I rolled to the right as he kicked at me. His followthrough sent him tumbling as his standing foot slipped on the ice under him sending him both feet up in the air and straight onto his back. The casket’s pulling in my guts flared and I scrambled onto Jarrett. I scratched and pulled at his jacket while I chomped and bit at his neck. It had been so long since I ate anything warm. Mice were not nearly as warm as men.
But strong arms grabbed me before I could get my teeth into his neck and I felt myself pulled away and carried up into the air with my arms and legs still swinging and flailing and my jaw still snapping. I watched Jerrett climb to his feet and watched him snivel and cry and point at me shouting look at him look at him look at him he attacked me he attacked me. A man who was so quick only a few minutes ago to shove me to the ground and punch and kick me is now crying because a man who is a shadow of himself jumped on him. Above me I heard someone calling for the police and someone else calling out for help anyone who would listen. I only had so much time and I started to thrash to get free and I almost got free but a heavy punch in the back of my head put that to rest. One man’s luck is another man’s misfortune and one man’s misfortune is another man’s luck.
