Forlorn

Thursday, nine a.m.: snow, snow--everywhere! There must have been five (fifteen?) inches, and it was still coming down, pretty hard. He squinted. Perhaps his ten-year-old eyes were deceiving him--or it could be the fever--but wasn't that William at the end of the road? Evan opened the window and stuck his head out, just a little (but enough to make his mother very unhappy, should she pick this moment to slink into his room with a bowl of steaming oatmeal atop a bed tray). 

Ah, yes--it was, in fact, his rotund nemesis who was plodding his way down their street, dragging his expensive, bragged-about sled behind him. The tracks he made looked like those of some giant, inelegant slug-like creature. His puffer jacket and thrice-wrapped scarf only added to the bulbous effect. Evan briefly pondered shouting some pre-adolescent insult, then reconsidered (again, Mom). Anyway, he needed to shut the window. Brrrrr!

Evan made his way back to bed and flopped under the covers. He thought of his own sled, that marvelous old hunk of an heirloom presented to him with grave pomp by his father, around this time last year ("Son, I think you're old enough to appreciate this now.") It must be waiting, forlorn, in a corner of the mudroom; surely it itched to get out and skim across the snow just as much as its young owner.

Ah, well. After breakfast and maybe a cup of hot chocolate, he'd nap and make himself dream of a monster powder-coated hill and an easy race victory over a certain evil slug. No fair being sick on a snow day, no fair at all. That was all there was to it. 

This is my latest bit of microfiction for Willow's Magpie Tales.