When I was Five Part I

The night was cold and the wind quick. The leaf's rustled and shook across the lawn. It was a lonely sound.
A sound that can make a child somber without knowing why. A sound that an entire toybox cannot liven. It
was the sound of snow on the way and the vengence of winter being born again.

The branches of barren, leafless trees waved a silent goodbye to the beautiful dress of summer they had once
worn. The moon, once warm with romance, was now cold and harshly bright.The bird's were now gone and
marking an end to summer with the absence of their song.

I loved the birds and of course I loved summer. Summer's end was not really so bad with the beauty of sunshine
and warm days being stolen by brisk cold winds and barren landscapes. The color change of the leaves was in
a way beautiful and the falling snow upon the ground did create an ambience in the moonlight of tranquaility in my warm and satisfying house. We would rake up leaves and bound into them throwing their colorful rainbows of yellows and reds into the air now perfumed by those burning in the distance. The scent of another spring now gliding into the winds of memory.

This all once again ended and began when I was five. Small beads of ice pocked against the glass and I wiped the fog from the living room window. Again I had forgotten my self-taught lesson to never breath directly through my mouth when spying out of the window in winter. I could see ice and snow outside floating magically to the ground. It was not really such a dismal sight. I liked to look at snow much more than play in the icy white cold of it. In the distance I watchedthe snow fall through the beam of a streetlamp. It changed course and ran into other snowflakes often in the gust of wind.

A lone car sombered by slowly with a gentle shushing sound perpendicular to my street. I wondered, as I often did, where the people inside were going. The headlights played along the edge of the street and I saw a snowman that someone had built a few house's away. A scarf fluttered behind his head and for a brief moment that it was, the headlights playing with the shadows, made the snowman appear to wave at me. Optical illusion or not I smiled and waved back. Everything was magic when I was five.

A movement flickered just inside my peripheral vision and I looked in that direction with a quick jerk of my head slightly startled. A small cat scurried across the yard and stopped at a large oak tree inside our yard. Hunkering down watchful and alert it shivered perceptively. The tree was not enough shelter against the bitter cold wind. The ears were pressed back by the screeching wind as it scurried off again in search of a warmer place to rest for the night. I wanted to run to the front door and cry out "Hereeeee...kitty, kitty!" but I knew I could not keep him so I made no effort. I could not suppress my sadness while thinking of the cold and alone cat while sitting in my warm and cozy home.We are all related in some way, connected by chemical or virtue so why should I live in a warm house while the cat can not? We humans are labeled as animals so why do we live in warm homes while they other animal do not? Because we can build them a more rational mind would tell me but of course these things could not be reasoned out when I was five.

The tip of my nose pressed tightly against the window in thought. When I pulled away the heat from the house made the tip sting my nose's frozen tip and I grimaced. Cold nose's running and sniffling, freezing toes that never seemed to warm again, and fingertips stinging sometimes almost painfully were my main reasons for not liking winter when I was five and to this day.

I left the emptiness of the window and winter to ascend disheartenedly up to my bedroom. My Mickey Mouse night light was the only light on in the room and I left it that way. Nothing in the room excited me tonight. My Hot Wheels were scattered all over the floor in front of the closet. The track, two lanes of plastic that could be added on to, were tacked to the window sill from where it descended to the floor and beyond. It had been pinned on the sill in this way since April when I got it and some more race cars for my fifth birthday. All my Hot Wheels were race cars because of an early love for racing probably created by my father. I had every color imaginable, but regardless of color, I always won. It was easy to choose the winning colord car as they streaked down the track.

The only toy I found more amusing than my Hot Wheels was my little brother. Anything to aggravate him was a thrill in the finest sense of the word so I did it often. I always got the prize in a box of Cap'N'Crunch, we always watched my favorite cartoons, and I was allowed to stay up a half hour later than him. This pleasured me as well because he was became so annoyed that he would still be fussing when I did actually have to go to bed. He was now sprawled out on the living room floor directly in front of the TV and probably thrilled that I was leaving him alone.This was my stingy, mean, competitive and wonderous side when I was five.