I said I'd post the as-is scene of domesticity (and nature) I wrote the other day. And here it is! It's still just a first draft but I really enjoyed writing it. I won't offer any context, because I don't think it's necessary.
Icicles caught the pale midday sunlight as they dangled from the cottage roof overhang, slender fiery spears dripping beads of dayglow. Their ringing patter into puddles recalled “Carol of the Bells”. Blue jays squawked, mourning doves cooed and cardinals tweeted as they jockeyed for position at a bird feeder. Intrepid and industrious chipmunks lingered beneath the feeder to collect the fallen seeds. Snow formed in rippling waves like a glowing blue frozen sea, loose powder drifting over its glittering diamantine surface. The branches of pine trees creaked beneath the weight of snow and ice cocooning them. And smoke billowed from the cottage’s chimney, meandering in the gentle breeze of a pristine winter day.
Bootprints in the snow broke the illusion of an otherwise immaculate natural landscape. As did the azure tarpaulin kept the snow off the firewood beside the cottage. The tarpaulin’s frayed edge waved when the wind kicked up, and deep within the woodpile hunkered house mice that stole into the cottage at night in an attempt to pillage dried pasta. A small hatchet for cutting kindling lay nearby. Ice on the frozen stream in the garden cracked as the sun passed its apogee and the day’s temperature reached its still chilly high. Northern leopard frogs that called the stream home hibernated in its depths as minnows slept burrowed into the muddy stream bed.
Inside the cottage, Asha had dragged the chaise longue nearer the fireplace and reclined there in the underwear and t-shirt she’d worn to bed. She turned the page of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, the nearly decade-old secondhand paperback falling apart. The oil on her fingertips left behind small prints on the loose pages, the novel’s spine broken, its cover curled and a stranger’s neat, cramped handwriting crowding the margins.
Hadley made grilled cheese sandwiches in the kitchen and stirred a pot of chicken noodle soup. She’d have preferred tomato soup, but Asha hated it. As she flipped the sandwiches in the frying pan, one side a toasty golden brown, she peered at Asha. No amount of years could elapse that would diminish the simple pleasure of looking at her. When Asha pulled her legs up, bent at the knees, to rest the back of the book against them, Hadley admired the faint ripples of stretch marks ornamenting her upper thigh as they caught the firelight like leftover Christmas tinsel.
They ate lunch at their small kitchen table, the tabletop scarred, its finish scratched and faded. Steam rising from their bowls carried the salty scent of chicken noodle soup, and their grilled cheese sandwiches made a satisfying crunch with each bite. The sun shined through a lattice of frost on the kitchen window, and as Hadley and Asha enjoyed lunch, they partook in their favourite winter pastime of watching the birds from the warmth of the cottage. Hadley missed the bombination of hummingbirds and the iridescence of the feathers on their diminutive bodies. They’d migrate back in spring once the weather warmed and she’d be waiting. Soon, the birds with their long needle-like beaks and even longer tongues would jostle for a place at the feeder in the garden.
“Beautiful day. Should we go out?” Asha asked, tipping her bowl to fill her spoon.
“It’s only beautiful from inside. We’d only get all dressed up to step outside and turn around. I thought we’d go for a nap. When we wake up it’ll nearly be dinnertime.”
“Sleep and eat. That’s all you want to do today?”
“Somehow, I’m always hungrier when I’m doing nothing. Give me work to warrant a meal and I’ll forget to eat altogether,” Hadley said, collecting their dishes and setting them in the sink.
“I’m content.” She could while the day away watching Asha read fireside without a soupçon of boredom. No greater joy lay beyond the walls of their cottage.
