Melt
by Zach Yontz
I returned from work three days ago to find an enormous cube of ice set in the middle of my living room floor. My first thought was that someone had hanged themselves, but as I live alone, the ice had not melted, and there was no evidence of a hanging person, I decided this had not happened. It was a nuisance, though, to have that ice there.
The first night I tried to ignore it by not going into the living room to watch TV. If it melted I figured that was ok since I live on the first floor and so it would not drip terribly on anyone below me. And there is no carpet, only wood, and the wood is warped, and so I am and was not concerned about the warping.
Before going to bed I checked on the ice and it sat there glistening in the streetlights light lighting it through the windows. It glistened at me and looked like frozen waves and I thought about touching it but didn't, and I turned the heat down and went to bed. Heat is expensive, I do not need heat when I use blankets.
In the morning it sat there frozenly crashing forever on my living room floor and I thought about calling out of work, but there were no good excuses at hand or in mind and so I thought a watched pot never boils, maybe ice is the opposite and a watched ice melts so I went to work and decided that night to watch it. This was the second night if not clear.
The second night I watched that ice all night, watched it glisten, watched my TV shows refracted through its frozen wave forms and its shimmery exterior in the street lights light. I got more and more mad the more I couldn't see my TV, I got so mad and I got a hammer. I came at the ice with such fury in my bones, for sitting there glistening and for being right in front of my TV, and I smashed the hammer at it and on it and around it and the ice sat there cold and unmoved and uncracked and unmelted.
Next I lit a fire next to the ice with some old newspapers I had lying around, some old magazines she had left here, some old bills and whatnot. I stacked them all next to the ice and charred the floor and smoked the ceiling and coughed and coughed and when the fire went out I had ruined the floor, ruined the ceiling, ruined the living room, but the ice did not ruin. I did not sleep, I called out of work.
Tonight I have decided to test that ices mettle. I have fit this noose around my neck just so, I have put the chair next to the ice, I have wrapped the noose around ruined ceiling beams, and I am climbing on the chair and I will stand on that ice.
The first night I tried to ignore it by not going into the living room to watch TV. If it melted I figured that was ok since I live on the first floor and so it would not drip terribly on anyone below me. And there is no carpet, only wood, and the wood is warped, and so I am and was not concerned about the warping.
Before going to bed I checked on the ice and it sat there glistening in the streetlights light lighting it through the windows. It glistened at me and looked like frozen waves and I thought about touching it but didn't, and I turned the heat down and went to bed. Heat is expensive, I do not need heat when I use blankets.
In the morning it sat there frozenly crashing forever on my living room floor and I thought about calling out of work, but there were no good excuses at hand or in mind and so I thought a watched pot never boils, maybe ice is the opposite and a watched ice melts so I went to work and decided that night to watch it. This was the second night if not clear.
The second night I watched that ice all night, watched it glisten, watched my TV shows refracted through its frozen wave forms and its shimmery exterior in the street lights light. I got more and more mad the more I couldn't see my TV, I got so mad and I got a hammer. I came at the ice with such fury in my bones, for sitting there glistening and for being right in front of my TV, and I smashed the hammer at it and on it and around it and the ice sat there cold and unmoved and uncracked and unmelted.
Next I lit a fire next to the ice with some old newspapers I had lying around, some old magazines she had left here, some old bills and whatnot. I stacked them all next to the ice and charred the floor and smoked the ceiling and coughed and coughed and when the fire went out I had ruined the floor, ruined the ceiling, ruined the living room, but the ice did not ruin. I did not sleep, I called out of work.
Tonight I have decided to test that ices mettle. I have fit this noose around my neck just so, I have put the chair next to the ice, I have wrapped the noose around ruined ceiling beams, and I am climbing on the chair and I will stand on that ice.
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Author's Note
This is part of a collection of shorts, all taking one word titles as inspiration for what the story is about.
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Oddly fitting. Dare say glitches suggest alternate identity, Z.