This Month's Story

When I awoke this morning the sun was coming up and the day looked to be a beautiful start to the new year. Stella and I had a pleasant breakfast that looked out at the trees in the distances being bathed in the light of the sun’s early rise. After breakfast, I moved to the recliner in the corner of the room and relaxed while Stella made her recipe of Christmas chutney. A little late as far as Christmas is concerned, but it doesn’t matter with her chutney, it will be good in July, if any of the several quart jars she is making are left.

We had gone to bed at eleven last night, New Year’s Eve. We were tired and my thoughts at the time were that the new year would come whether we were there to greet it or not. So, here we were at ten thirty on a Sunday / New Year’s morning, relaxed and letting the day and the year move on.

“Paul, there are clouds.”

I sat up.

“Where?”

She pointed to our west. I turned the around in the recliner and looked.

Behind the trees, covering the entire western sky, was a massive bank of clouds. As I watched it moved ominously toward us; we would receive its contents within the hour. The outside temperature was a warm 38 degrees. Reason said that what we would get from those dark clouds would be rain. I wasn’t that sure, however, and turned on the weather channel.

“… medium weather warning: Rain this afternoon at times heavy with winds, averaging twenty miles an hour and gusts of forty miles an hour. As the temperature cools, ice will form on the roads as a result of the afternoon’s rain. Snow will start late this evening accumulating approximately 4 to 6 inches by morning.…”

I turn it off and watched the clouds. They were not pretty, twisting shaded black turns of trouble. Soon there was rain; it wasn’t going to wait till the afternoon.

Stella brought me a spoon of her chutney to try. It was good and I told her it was.

We looked out the window and watched swirling wind blown rain beat on the glass.

It was not a good start to the New Year.

I turned to Stella.

“I know what the problem is. We didn’t start the year off with a bang. I should have known better. Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright, I have just the remedy.”

I went in my office and rummaged through the flat drawer in the middle of the desk. In moments, I found what I wanted: a bottle rocket. I had hid there from when we built the house. It was the last of several that we had used to both bless and celebrate our new home.

Now this long forgotten rocket would have a chance to fulfill its destiny.

Years ago, we used to set off Bottle Rockets in the sand in front of our house on New Year’s Eve. Our record if I remember correctly was more than a thousand at one time. Now I would placate whatever it was that was controlling our destiny with a single rocket.

I looked for a bottle, but couldn’t find one. I grabbed a tall glass that I thought would do and Stella and I went out on the covered porch. I carefully placed the rocket in the glass orienting outward. Taking the fireplace’s lighter, I started a flame. I turned to Stella and motioning her to stand back, lit the rocket.

There was a satisfactory sparking fizz and the burning fuse rose at an equally satisfying slow rate to the base of the rocket.

It stayed there for a moment.

And then the lighted fuse went out.

Stella and I stood and watched. Nothing happened. The rain fell beyond the porch overhang, the sky remained gray. The rocket stayed in the glass.

I’m in my office now. It’s an hour later. The rain has stopped for a moment at least, but more dark, heavy clouds are moving in. from my window on the porch, I can see the glass still with the rocket in it.

It hasn’t gone off.