A Wintry Reflection
Marzipan Dung Beetles
Dave Cline
January 2022
Winter has settled in. Rain falls like molten silver splashing into puddles dry for months. The season’s gloom has crept through window-gaps and drafty doorways—a grey pall coating the backs of chairs and the pull-knobs on cabinets. My hand on the plasticized tablecloth comes away damp. Even my buttered muffin, its fat congealed, tastes colorless.
There’s a scratching at the backdoor. Not some feeble itching at the wood, no, this is Trash demanding entry. Trash, a bobcat found as a kitten at the edge of the town’s dump, expects his offering. I let him in. “Here,” I say, tossing half the muffin to him. Trash doesn’t catch it as a dog might. He snares it with a claw, slapping it to the floor, butter-side down.
“You’ll clean that up.”
He knows. He’ll lick the linoleum streak-free and then demand more. I pour him a bowlful of economically priced cat chow, but not until I see him wipe his rasp-like tongue across the grease spot. I try to pet him behind the ears, one pat is all I get. “Yeah, you go ahead, take what you want, leave me begging.” His needle-sharp talons miss me by an inch.
I throw a towel down to soak up the rain trail. Coffee chilled, I sip it anyway, its bitter flavor deeper now. Trash has satiated his appetite. He sits on the towel and chuffs at me. He stares right into my eyes. Through me. I’m no comfort to him, I think, I’m this machine leveraged for vittles.
“Why don’t you eat cottontails?” My winter garden, broccoli and kale, leaf-buried carrots lay ravaged by a gang of conies. Trash chuffs again, paces around my chair and returns to the towel. I attempt to call him, pretending to hold a morsel in my fingers. He sniffs once and I reach to pet his thick, grizzled fur. I don’t even see the slash of his paw. “You fucking ingrate.” Crimson lines trace the back of my hand. I try to kick him as he slinks through the open door but only manage to wiff sending my slipper flying into the mud.
I push the door wide and let the squall blow sharp drops into my face. “Ah, what the hell.” I kick my other slipper out to join its mate. The wind flails at my housecoat. Not many men wear such a thing, but this is winter, and its royal-blue color presses back the monotone blah.
Trash is sitting at the edge of the yard, his outline distinct, but his coat a perfect blend with this dismal morning. “Go catch us a rabbit.” He turns my way, a prince deigning to notice the help. I imagine his look is one of disdain, but I know such sentiments are not his style, nor his domain.
I step out on the stoop, my arms spread wide. “Blow you wicked tempest. Shred my mind. Strip me of these foul thoughts of pointless struggle.” Oh, to be like Trash, absent of doubt and indecision. The bobcat slips away as I lift my face to the dark gods, their indifference a given. Rain drips into my eyes.
What purpose the rain? To water the land, to grow the crops, the sweet cherries, the entangled ivy? What purpose, then, of the fields of wheat and rice, if their bounty goes to fill the bellies of people like me, destined to die? And, what of civilization that will surely fall, of planets that coalesce and thrive, then burn in their star’s embrace? Of the stars and galaxies themselves that spiral and fling ever outward until their light stretches into ever-darkness? What, finally, of the Universe, its death throes beyond time itself, but inevitable?
Standing there I forget myself, my bare feet wrinkled and icy-cold. I turn back inside and discover a slick of water trailing across the floor to the sag in the kitchen’s corner. The storm’s grim shroud begins to fade. Before I close the door, Trash appears, a brown bundle dangling from his mouth, rabbit feet twitching erratically.
“Found your purpose, I see.”
I shuffle the towel across the floor. It’s a pink and yellow beach towel, a remnant of times past, times when I too had purpose—before it all came undone, unrecognizable from the life I stumble through today. “If a cat can find his purpose, what of his servant?” I dab my wound and wring the towel. I examine the rain-streaked window above the sink, the mercurial rivers meandering down the glass. “The purpose of water is to move, to flow.” I wonder at this until I shudder from a chill.
As I turn away, the slick floor sends my feet shooting out from under me. I land hard and roll onto my back. I’m sure my hip is bruised. I calm my breathing and look up.
Who looks at ceilings? This kitchen ceiling is stained and spattered with bursted soups and sauces. There are splotches of deep-red and dark-green, exploded lasagna and uncapped blenders spewing pesto, rare evidence that a family, my family, once lived here. It’s the messes we leave behind that we remember. Was it a delicious meal, a touching conversation? Who remembers? The grass-green mess and the garlic odor that lingered for months certainly comes to mind.
Toward evening, after the storm has passed, I don mud-gear and locate my slippers. Trash arrives, regally stepping between puddles. “How was your meal? Didn’t bother to share, did you?”
He chuffs at me, strolls up to the backdoor and begins a bath.
I spy rabbits nosing out from the brush, eager to plunder what’s left of the garden. The rain has washed clean buried sprouts and tubers. “Cheeky little prigs.” I give them a frantic wave which does nothing to scare them. “Hey, Trash.” He surprises me when he pauses with a glance. “You’ve got company.”
As the sun sets, the crack between sky and earth opens and a searchlight sun pins my shadow to the side of the house. I squint then close my eyes and let the blazing orange light sear my lids.
The morning’s murk has drained away. Looking around I see rhododendrons pushing early buds like red lipstick up into the last of the sun’s rays. Rhodies feel no shame.
Winter has its moments.
