Morning all. Everyone ready for the holidays? At the moment I’ve got a goose that is thawing in my fridge and shoving normal foods to the side.It is oddly disconcerting when opening the fridge to get the creamer for my morning coffee. I think it is because it is large enough to just completely dominate my vision. I open the fridge door with my sleep fuzzed brain thinking ‘I need creamer’ and then bam – Goose. But at least it won’t be for long. On Christmas, his goose is cooked. (sorry, couldn’t resist, I know I should have tried harder. I blame the low caffeine levels. So bad jokes aside, let’s get into the morning prompt. Ready? excellent. Let’s go.
Okay, that was fun.
Wednesday, December 23rd: For once, he was rendered speechless.
For once he was rendered speechless. He stared at the mess, no the catastrophe before him and could only stand their open mouthed and blinking. Words failed him.
A hoarse wheezing sound was issuing from his mouth. It sounded like words that were too scared to form. In the center of the living room, there was a hole. Not a hole burned into the carpet. Not even a hole that managed to bore through the subfloor. This hole was different.
It was about two meters in diameter and if he dared to peer over the edge and looked down, he doubted he would see the basement. He didn’t know if he wasn’t brave enough or stupid enough to walk to the edge and look down or if it was a combination of caution and intelligence that kept him as far away from the hole as he could manage. Instead of the basement, there was darkness. In the darkness were gray clouds swirling. Flashes of light sparked through the massive clouds. For one brief second he thought this might be what it was like to look down on a thunderstorm at night as it merged with a tornado.
Then one of the lightning bolts strobed magenta and another flickered with green and he dismissed the thought. If this was a storm, it wasn’t a natural one. Which he admitted, he should have realized from the fact that it was contained in a hole, in his living room.
With great effort he managed to snap his mouth shut and cut off the non verbal moaning sounds issuing forth. He swallowed hard and shut his eyes for a moment. He was hoping that when he opened them again it would be gone. He was also too scared of what it might do when he wasn’t looking to keep his eyes closed for too long and cracked the right one open a slit.
Nothing changed so he opened his eyes fully and stared at the swirling void.
Was it spinning faster now? He couldn’t tell. He heard footsteps and looked up to find his Aunt Petunia descending the staircase. She didn’t seem as concerned with the swirling void in the hole in his living room as he did. In fact she looked at it with a certain amount of …pride.
She placed her hands on her hips and stared at it with the air of someone who has just completed a difficult task and is pleased with the outcome. Then she looked up and spotted him standing on the other side.
He face fell and her hands slipped from her hips. “Drat,” she said. The twang in her voice familiar and unmistakable; her irritation was clear. “You weren’t supposed to be home for another two hours.”
“There was a power outage,” he said. A big rig carrying chemicals ran into the transformer or something and took out the whole block’s power while spilling something toxic. We couldn’t work so they sent us home so we’d at least be out of the way.” He found himself explaining.
“Yes, well now you’re in my way,” she replied. “I suppose something will have to be done about that.”
Ten til Midnight 