Some might say an attic isn’t an attic without storage present.
Others might ponder what they could find in the barren room haven of privacy. (Image by Paul Wainwright.)
The Attic
by Odin Roark
Once a bastion of memories, today but an empty room atop a vacated winter house in the mountains.
Buzz, buzz.
Now, since children are grown up and gone, parents have passed on, and grandparents departed long ago, the inhabitants remaining are but a few cluster flies, a nervous mouse, and a black widow patiently perched atop its web at window’s top extending down
to the sill where the spider’s food chances are best.
It being fall, the flies, finding a crack in the ceiling wander outdoors for food periodically,
but then return to the warmer surroundings.
The mouse having found parts of the house yielding years-old crumbs, dried bits of fruit and meat scraps, plus a leaky faucet for water, enjoys his palatial space.
Frustrated, the spider eyes all this flying and scurrying activity and waits.
It knows a cluster fly caught in its lower web will be a tempting meal for the mouse who loves cluster flies, yet in spite of it being cunning, isn’t too bright when it comes webbed sills.
Buzz, Buzz.
The winged vagabonds loving to tease the spider, hug the ceiling and make Kamikaze dives at the perch and the sill.
On and on it goes, until…
Buz, buz, buz!
A winter blizzard cracks the fragile window, and as it shatters, the black widow high tails it for the ceiling. The flies pause on the floor, WTF.
And the mouse makes it to his hole in the wall before the attic becomes a snow drift.
Come spring time…
The mouse having a big heart has delivered some small morsels of dried meat for the flies,
kept himself moderately fed down his escape route, and when they occasionally all dine together
in the middle of the attic, all eyes stare at the window.
Their nemesis is at it again.
“How’d he survive the winter with nothing to eat?”
squeaks the mouse. He glances down at the squadron of flies, short three.
“Oops.”
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Love ya!
Jane
Ron