Misawa
19-12-2009, 02:00 AM
A (double) moral fable I wrote years ago.
WINTER
45mph. 45mph in a 30mph zone. 45mph in a crowded Monday morning haze of children, mostly under twelve years old, screaming gleefully with optimists' laughter for the school day ahead. Blissful bodies empowered with high-spirited humour and joyous conversation, saliva-spitting mouths spluttering old jokes and badly-worded opinions on the weekend's television. A dozen faces laced with smiles illustrate spontaneous imaginations like out worldly thoughts bearing invisible paintbrushes and crafting a failed Picasso. An incoherent verbal flood; words rocket from the mouths like a colossal wall missing bricks.
Vehicles roar past the youngsters, relentlessly aiding the December freeze with bellowing, almighty gusts. In the midst of their delight, they cover from the icy blasts that splinter their packaged faces by sinking into their warm hooded coats and thick woollen gloves, doing all they can to protect the only exposed part of their bodies from the harsh winter offering of glass shard air.
Bright yellow headlights battle the frozen mist and half succeed, illuminating a blurry high street immersed in a silver frost on one devilishly dark and cold morning, where the sun is evanescent, locked behind an unbreakable, ravaging grip, applied mercilessly by a destructive convergence of rabidly reckless winds and ice-bleached clouds, casting a withered shadow over civilisation like a malignant cancer or a flesh-rotting, blood-shedding plague.
The invigorating rays of the sun rupture like broken arrows against the formidable armour of the frosty street and shatter into quivering particles, admiring the cold's defense in a deathly invisible silence.
Melancholy weather elates exuberance. These children know no apathy.
Small feet take small steps. Light feet take light steps. Leather shoes stamp into the surface leaving incomplete imprints in the thin layer of crumbling ice. Thick black heels bite into a glistening cake, shattering solidity and substance with polished knives.
One child lowers himself, ducking out of the wind, but being captivated by the breath of the surface, his red laces unravelled, stiff in the ice. He swipes away the frost as if it were a choking dust.
The crowd of scuffling children moves on, trudging through the haunting mist. They leave behind the little one tying up his crimson shoe laces. The laughter continues as they cross the winter-foggy street on a blood red light, one voice short.
With all across safely, the light changes. The winter-ridden road is enlightened by a deep green, reflecting like flat vegetation in a plentiful summer meadow upon the white.
45mph. 45mph in a 30mph zone.
The one who is left behind staggers to his feet, at war with the wind. Hey, wait up! his thoughts cry; wait up! The boy begins to run, everything channelled on catching up with his friends, who are now distant shadows, swallowed up by the cold across the wintered street. The idea of taking caution on the ice is thrown from his head. The idea of crossing the road safely is-
Stunned silence engulfs the street. Sickening chills wrench watching hearts. A cataclysmic, morbid freeze in frozen time occurs.
Jeremy Baker, age ten. Killed by not looking both ways.
Jeremy Baker, age ten. Killed by a speeding motorist.
WINTER
45mph. 45mph in a 30mph zone. 45mph in a crowded Monday morning haze of children, mostly under twelve years old, screaming gleefully with optimists' laughter for the school day ahead. Blissful bodies empowered with high-spirited humour and joyous conversation, saliva-spitting mouths spluttering old jokes and badly-worded opinions on the weekend's television. A dozen faces laced with smiles illustrate spontaneous imaginations like out worldly thoughts bearing invisible paintbrushes and crafting a failed Picasso. An incoherent verbal flood; words rocket from the mouths like a colossal wall missing bricks.
Vehicles roar past the youngsters, relentlessly aiding the December freeze with bellowing, almighty gusts. In the midst of their delight, they cover from the icy blasts that splinter their packaged faces by sinking into their warm hooded coats and thick woollen gloves, doing all they can to protect the only exposed part of their bodies from the harsh winter offering of glass shard air.
Bright yellow headlights battle the frozen mist and half succeed, illuminating a blurry high street immersed in a silver frost on one devilishly dark and cold morning, where the sun is evanescent, locked behind an unbreakable, ravaging grip, applied mercilessly by a destructive convergence of rabidly reckless winds and ice-bleached clouds, casting a withered shadow over civilisation like a malignant cancer or a flesh-rotting, blood-shedding plague.
The invigorating rays of the sun rupture like broken arrows against the formidable armour of the frosty street and shatter into quivering particles, admiring the cold's defense in a deathly invisible silence.
Melancholy weather elates exuberance. These children know no apathy.
Small feet take small steps. Light feet take light steps. Leather shoes stamp into the surface leaving incomplete imprints in the thin layer of crumbling ice. Thick black heels bite into a glistening cake, shattering solidity and substance with polished knives.
One child lowers himself, ducking out of the wind, but being captivated by the breath of the surface, his red laces unravelled, stiff in the ice. He swipes away the frost as if it were a choking dust.
The crowd of scuffling children moves on, trudging through the haunting mist. They leave behind the little one tying up his crimson shoe laces. The laughter continues as they cross the winter-foggy street on a blood red light, one voice short.
With all across safely, the light changes. The winter-ridden road is enlightened by a deep green, reflecting like flat vegetation in a plentiful summer meadow upon the white.
45mph. 45mph in a 30mph zone.
The one who is left behind staggers to his feet, at war with the wind. Hey, wait up! his thoughts cry; wait up! The boy begins to run, everything channelled on catching up with his friends, who are now distant shadows, swallowed up by the cold across the wintered street. The idea of taking caution on the ice is thrown from his head. The idea of crossing the road safely is-
Stunned silence engulfs the street. Sickening chills wrench watching hearts. A cataclysmic, morbid freeze in frozen time occurs.
Jeremy Baker, age ten. Killed by not looking both ways.
Jeremy Baker, age ten. Killed by a speeding motorist.