




Fiction Fragment Friday
A short one this week that is really more of a scene than it is an actual story.
The moon was breathtaking. No clouds were in the sky to obscure the view so I could make out individual features. The sky was filled with stars, but none could hope to rival the majesty of the moon’s glow. We move through life so quickly that there is never enough time to just take in the wonders of the universe.
In that moment, staring up at the sky, I had nothing but time. I needed to let the pain subside before I tried to get back up. The cold ice on my back cut through my body, sending shivers throughout. It might have looked like I was lying on snow, but the top layer had melted and refrozen days ago. My entire yard was one enormous sheet of ice, which I realized sometime between stepping on it and my body hitting the ground.
Sometimes it takes something extreme to make you appreciate the things in life you normally take for granted. For me, I guess falling in my front yard trying to check on outside water pipes qualified. At that moment, I wasn’t sure if the ground itself wouldn’t have been softer than the ice I had landed on.
From somewhere in the neighborhood, a small black and white dog approached me. “Hey boy,” I said with as friendly a tone as I could muster. I expected the little guy to come up and start licking my face. Instead, he hiked his back leg and started peeing. Between the chokes and the cursing, I found my body more ready to get back up than I thought it was.
Unfortunately, the ice under me had not gotten any less slick in the time I was lying there. With my quick motions, I found myself slipping and sliding, unable to get any traction. My movements must have startled him because the dog ran away. In that moment, I was jealous of how he easily he could adapt to the ice and keep moving. That only lasted until I found myself lying in his puddle of urine to be replaced by anger.
“Now I know how those burglars from Home Alone felt,” I muttered to myself between the groans of pain.
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