Winter Gothic

The pond was frozen over and the wind had blown renegade snowflakes under the feeble plastic covering the car's cracked windshield. There used to be two cars parked in front of the house on the corner-- two matching Subarus, Mschef and Mschef2. Now Mschef2 was all that was left, deserted, snowdrifts piled along its running boards all winter long, for at least the third running winter in years. Overall, it was the sort of sad winter scene a depressed landscape artist would paint while contemplating if he really needed his left ear; if the world really needs to be heard in surround sound. Even the Canadian geese who hadn't quite made the winter cut-off flying south who were now squatting by the pond looked like they were considering just ending it before having to go through another Vermont winter, and we all know how little comparable intelligence a goose possesses. There's not a gently teasing idiot remark about it for nothing.

I used to drive by about 6 times a week during high school on the way to and from the barn, when it was occupied, in better times, and I remember thinking it looked like the sort of place I would want to know the kind of people who would get matching "Mschef" vanity plates and live in an old clapboard house on a wide corner of a country road and go swimming in their pond in the backyard. They were probably artists, I thought, the two Mschefs-- projects got started, and never seemed to get finished, like the sliding doors on the north side of the house that, while installed, still looked raw around the seams and beams, like someone had found another project to worry at before they could finish fixing the trim. Ms. Mschef was probably a chef or caterer, the sort of a woman who always has a "To Do" list and is methodical yet nonchalant about getting it all done; Mr. Mschef seemed liked he'd be a house painter by day, and an abstract painter by night. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed handy around a house, yet scattered.

The house and car had been left vacant in the middle of those scattered renovations, the impedance unknown-- a divorce; an affair; a death; an unplanned-for birth, perhaps. There are, after all, some things that just can't be explained to a spouse. Why your newborn son looks more like the cashier behind the local general store and why you've been running more "last-minute late night errands" to get supplies for the next day's "intimate rehearsal lunch for 12" is one of them. Now, left all exposed wood and pink insulation tufting out to be mauled at by small mammals and birds to feather their own nests, it resembles so much nothing better than a big stuffed Valentine's Day heart, ripped apart, trailing entrails and the stuff two people thought would be enough to keep them warm. The only sign of life left on the property were those two Canadian geese out by the pond, and even they looked like they wouldn't be sticking around for much longer, if they could help it. After tragedy, sometimes, the stench just remains.

XOXO