Snowy Night in Baltimore

TV was on, but muted. Every news channel it was the same damn thing. "Winter weather warning!"

"No shit," I said sipping my vodka. "It's winter, therefore every bit of the weather we have now is, technically speaking, winter weather." I knew that the local WalMart and the dozen or so stop-and-robs were getting cleaned out of snow shovels, ice melt, milk, bread, and toilet paper. It never ceased to amaze me how spun up people get about thing that happen on a regular cycle.

There were few lights on over the streets, that was strange to me. Even during the storm that dropped 5 feet of snow on Baltimore a few years ago the street lights showed it all. Nights like this are fantastic. I just love to let my imagination go. My mind imagines all the monsters the falling snow could be hiding.

On nights like this the famed yeti could be stomping about in search of a meal. A hapless pedestrian coming home from the local corner store could be gobbled up by the snowy behemoth, never to be heard of again on a night like this.

Packs of white wolves darting from tree to tree and using the shrubs along the streets to hide their movements. On the prowl, searching silently on hairy paws for their next unwitting prey.

Or perhaps someone out for an evening stroll slips and finds themselves laying in the gutter suddenly. As they mumble to themselves about their awkward steps and clumsiness a clawed and misshapen hand reaches out from the drainage area along the curb. With sinews strengthened by a lifetime of climbing and clawing, with a grip of steel cables, the clawed hand clamps hard around the ankle of another hapless victim. The person, screaming, is pulled into the drain, killed, eaten, and the snow falls silently covering the street again. All signs of struggle wiped away.

I do so love these quiet, snowy evenings. They just fuel the imagination.