Fairy Tale Weather

Outside is like some fucking fairy tale, and I peer out the window at Hänsel and Grethel climbing over my fence. They have cut through my backyard again, something that Dolly would certainly frown upon. Why can't they use the sidewalk like everyone else? They litter all over the place. Fucking kids. Where are their parents? "The children must go; we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again."

It is foggy and warm in February, and the tree branches bend low, burdened with wet snow-turned-ice, heavy supplicants to my mood. This morning took me to court a married woman and spit me out a single one. Driving home, I zigzagged through slushy side streets as workers blocked my way with orange cones. The sight of downed power lines took me back to winters past, snow waist-deep, lost boots, the smell of singed shapeless wool mittens on a hot wood stove. The alarming exhileration of being bone-chilling sopping wet in winter. Girlhood. "Grethel wept bitter tears, and said to Hänsel, "Now all is over with us."

And Grethel walks on, a quiet uneasiness spreading before her like a wet shadow on the darkening street, bleeding down the hill and into the trees past the condos below. She walks. Past street lights blurred with freezing rain, past windows lit with radiant candles, electric bodies, love warmth. One step into the forest, and there will be no turning back. "Then they fell asleep and evening came and went, but no one came to the poor children."

Sitting on the front porch, though deaf and blind I hear thunder, see lightening in a gray pink sky with swirling snow and rushing wind, distant sirens and tornados in February. The trees, wild frenzied hysterical, shake heavy white snow onto my roof, my street, my world. The forecast is upside down, inside out, full of banging threats and wild promises. Who brings such a night as this? "The wind, the wind, The heaven-born wind."

Hänsel's bread is gone, and there is no one to come for me. I first arise, then go inside. Next I carry two boxes of matches to my bedside, after which I draw comfort from the mouse who busies himself in the back room. "Nibble, nibble, gnaw, Who is nibbling at my little house?"

"My tale is done; there runs a mouse; whosoever catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it."