It was a perfect cold night

436 words.

It was a perfect cold night

 

     It was a perfect cold night. The sharp type of cold which stung your skin and bound your muscles into a knot. It made you raw and angry. I opened the front door to the entryway of the hall of my building. A tiny room which housed the mailboxes and served as a buffer to the main apartment hallway. Sleeping in the tight room was an old man. A bottle of plastic vodka empty next to him. A pack of crumpled cigarettes in his hand. His eyes did not flicker below his closed lids to signify dreams. I did not wonder if a man like this might dream. The stink of s**t and stale vodka leaked from his pores, shrouding the room, turning my stomach.

     I stomped on the floor. Hoping this would rouse him. He did not open his eyes.

     “Hey.” I said. He did not respond.

     “Wake up.” Still nothing.

     I was expecting my date, a girl I had met at work, who smiled at me often and had been forceful enough to approach me for my number. She was due in less than fifteen minutes.

     I clutched my case of beer and bent down closer to him. The stink spoiled any idea I had of eating that night. I shouted louder. He waived me away as if swatting a fly. Something red rose up in me and I began shouting obscenities at him. He responded by not responding. I know my neighbors heard me, but I did not care. I launched into a tirade of profanity and threats. None of them roused much reaction from him.

     I looked out into the mounds of snow stacked up on the sidewalks. They looked like dunes. The wind stripped their top layer and created a mist.

     “Hey, Mister.” I said. I knelt down next to him. I reached towards his feet, towards the scabs of shoes bundled over his arthritic ankles, and pulled one of them off. His sock was as miserable as the rest of his clothes. Full of holes, black and crusty.

     He opened his eyes. I held his shoe up for him to see.

     “Wait.” He said.

     I opened the door, letting the rush of bitter air into the tiny room.

     “Don’t come back,” I said. I threw his shoe out in the mounds of snow. I pointed to his other shoe.

     “That one’s next if you don’t get the f**k out,” I said. He nodded and hobbled to his feet. He limped through the door into the cold night. Towards the direction I had thrown his shoe.

 

Reviews

[Ignacious Lamont Crowle..]

What a d*ck.

Well writen tho. :)