a horror

a young boy playing with his friends
at the top of a snowy hill
(one fashioned from a golf course, which with its deep dives &
cuts made for an exciting & dangerous fight down & around all
of its waves & bends---upon the freshly patted down snow now
covered with a thin layer of ice from the precipitation the
evening before),
gears himself up for his trip down the huge hill---jumping upon
his saucer-sled, one of the best---if you are in any way knowledgeable in
sleds, sledding, and the outside arts of the adirondack
snowy-ness.

i watched, probably, in much the same way as
mr. collins supposedly saw the guy watch another guy
drown, then wrote “in the air tonight” about the whole thing---
but unlike the urban legend concerning phil, this was
real.

as the child spun down the hill with his hair flying back in the
wind
and a large smile on his face,
with his hands gripped to the sides of the saucer
(no doubt exactly as the instructions said when his parents purchased it for the boy),
my own eyes followed his flight and zoomed ahead of him
as my visual, given the distance, could make out
where it was
that he was going to end up---
and there it was,
plain as day,
a humongous ball of rolled up snow
(far greater than the child’s size at least four times over) & it was
covered in what seemed to be from far away,
a hard layer of ice.

i could only imagine how thick the ice was
up close & personal.

& even though i was a teenager
i felt deep down in my sarcastic, sardonic, &
fed up heart,
that this boy was about to come upon a great bit of
pain---
and there wasn’t a thing i could do about it.

his eyes wide with horror &
the inability to stop his sled,
only occurred for but a split
second,
because directly thereafter
his head split on the large iceball
and blood spat a bright red
all over the new snow &
ice.

children from all over the hill, who
had been happily sledding & playing in the
snow,
began to scream, cry, and run to their
parents.