The snow fell from the clouds in clumps as thick as popcorn. It littered the ground so that only the tire tracks on the cobblestone road were visible. Even the footprints leading into the house from the night before had all but faded from the walkway. As he sat on his porch, shivering, he held his coffee close to his chest and took a drag from his cigarette. He exhaled slowly and breath rose like a smoke signal to the clouds, his only response to the vast blanketed sky. As the ash crept closer to his fingers, he gazed across the street. Perhaps it was just the wind on the back of his neck, but somehow the house across the street reminded him of an old childhood movie; The Brave Little Toaster. The windows like eyes, the chimney a nose, and the blue van that hadn’t moved in weeks, the mustache, of that old air conditioner. He paused and smiled for a moment. Childhood. At twenty two it already felt like an eternity ago; a term from some amnesiac past he could only call to mind flashes of. Yet he wasn’t an adult, at least he wouldn’t say he was. What did it even mean to be an adult? To own a car with over 100,000 miles on it? To work a minimum wage job that just barely paid for your rent, groceries, beer and cigarettes? As he took another pull and ashed the burning cancer double agent into the glass tray, he watched his neighbor shovel her driveway. Her trusty golden retriever frolicking through the yard, stopping only to shit in the snow as pure as the white of a virgin’s wedding dress.
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