Habit's Habit

Wandering around did have its perks, like learning memorising and observing the landscape and or the people. Which I normally did, study people that is. See I had no choice I’m stuck here, so this was the downside to the “wandering”.
Seventy-eighty years, I’ve been tucked down here and the area has changed heaps. I’ve watched the people around me grow, taller, wider, smaller, larger, thinner, greyer… I arrive every evening; sometimes I take the greying with me, sometimes I
draw the red blood from the sky allowing the sun to drip down to meet the dawn. And other times I mourn allowing the darkness to run into the light creating a very thin dreary grey bringing with it murky drip drop rain.

Other times when I feel like it I saunter into peoples lives, sometimes change them dramatically other times I leave them to their slumber. Am I important? I couldn’t answer that. Maybe for some youngster, when they look up to the sky at night, I see them curl their lips into twisted smiles, wishing I don’t know, but I do wink back. That could be important to them.
Spring; I whir in and out of barns, caves and burrows stirring animals awake finally after a long hard winter.
Summer; My slumber takes hold, the sun dislikes me for some reason, I don’t understand…
Autumn; My favourite month, crisp crunchy leaves all colours, red, orange, yellow and brown all such alluring colours together. They twist and fall, and sometimes hang on all the way through ‘til winter.
Winter; Hibernation; it’s not a simple job…Ice and frost a mans best friend.

, And now this, this all happened under the surveillance of mans best friend.

It was one of those dark mixing with light dreary damp days. London was having too much in my opinion, which is not healthy for the sun, and the moon let me tell you that. Which means consequences was a storm.
Wind howled and drenched its load across the wooden houses and churches and rivers and lakes and mainly the streets.
The cobblestones were sodden and slippery to walk on but this did not dampen the spirit of a little boy who kept climbing his path, wiping his nose on his rotten-holed sleeve every few seconds he climbed and climbed and I climbed and climbed after him, what can I say? I took an interest in the little fellow. His matted black hair clung to his dirtied up neck. He looked like he hadn’t washed in days, did he have a family I wasn’t with him long enough to find out. Two round apples illuminated out of his grimy face a smirk drawn by only just natures touch, hinted mischief.

The boy was still galloping up the stones could he see me? Maybe, or maybe not, but whether it was important or not he was heading for the towns lake. Why? I don’t know. Humans are curious beings. As the boy halted to a skid near the edge of the lake, he got on his knees and peered across the frozen
body of water. Slush wetted his knees and trousers. There seemed to be something on the lake, something belonged to the boy? Someone he knew?

The youngster stood back on the two legs nature had given him and crept forward onto the iced surface.
I saw it coming even before he laid his scrawny legs on the frozen lake. I heard it, smelt it, felt it before he did. The first few cracks were small stretching outwards then inwards again following the boy then gradually they grew bigger. Effortlessly I placed my two-yes-two feet on the ice and followed. The cracks grew louder they were starting to come away, but I did not fall.
The boy sadly heard the cracks too late. He had reached the spot where a worn out mitten glove was abandoned. The cracks had caught up to him and with one desperate movement he swiftly outstretched his arm towards the glove trying to grab hold of it somehow.

But he had met his deadline, when his fingers were close enough to brush of the fabric. The ice gave way. He plunged into the lagoon the frost biting him like a piranha, finally found his mouth, frozen water filled up his lungs, the cold and shock rattled his bones and already given his heart a right fright. Because when I finally reached the spot and pulled him out he had passed. Poor soul. But I knew it was coming to this as soon as I saw the poor chap, nothing I could have prevented anyway. It’s natures and destiny’s choice.
Just another habit from the dreadful habits.