I.
We sent cake to the underworld, where goblins performed backward one-legged dances. The Devil, ruler of grime beneath feet, stopped the dances and demanded the goblins compensate us, in full. We insisted, “It’s not a big deal. It was our choice to give them this delectable dessert.” But the Devil would not relent, demanding the goblins compensate us with charred copper on doorstep. I wondered what this would mean for the future. Would this make us beholden to the Devil?
II.
For a while after, we’d forgotten about the entire transaction. Our winter neighborhood went on with the usual children playing in snow, mounting newly formed glaciers as though alpine climbers, neighbors assisting in the shoveling of shared sidewalks, and friends’ and families’ jovial feasts.
But another snowstorm fell upon us (it appeared the gods had not forgotten us entirely with dreams of falling white). In the middle of night, I woke up to a loud mechanical sound. Perhaps, because of being drawn from sleep, and my dream not fully evaporated, I couldn’t quite tell what the sound was. Could it be a snow blower? Or a snowplow? I took out my ear plugs and listened more closely. It sounded snowblower-like, but equally similar to a subterranean furnace ingesting fuel. As the sound ebbed and flowed, a bellowing evoked.
After an hour, I fell back to sleep. The next day, after waking up late, chatting with a neighbor while shoveling, I told her of being woken up from sleep in the middle of the night. She said that the same thing happened to her family. So, Jim, her husband, got bundled up and went outside to tell the person using the snow blower to stop so the neighborhood could sleep. But when he went outside, the cold night was still and silent. Jim even walked down the street a bit, glancing in driveways, but no one was out, the neighborhood was sleeping.
Life went on, as it usually does in the New England winter, with people staying in more, watching tv, surfing the Internet and sitting by fires with libations. Then it snowed again. In the middle of the night, a loud snowblower-type noise sounded, resembling a ravenously fueled furnace. I went outside into the cold, crisp night, slightly illuminated by snow. As I half-expected, the snow blower sound vanished after I got outside. Walking down our road to an adjacent street, I looked around meticulously. As the night was completely empty, I started to head home. But turning back down our street, I noticed that the crunch boots made on snow had duplicated. Brusquely, I turned around, but the road was empty. Continuing home, I was sure that I heard a pair of extra footsteps behind me. Glancing sideways, I hoped that in home windows’ reflections I’d see if someone was following me – but the windows showed no reflection. Taking a deep breath, I turned around quickly. Standing before me was a person my own height, with dark hair, a slightly prematurely graying beard and the same hazel eyes. My doppelganger released a bellowing laugh, put his hands on his hips, shook his head and in a very familiar voice said, “You knew it was me all along, didn’t you?” Without thinking, I nodded slowly, in a hypnotic state. The doppelganger shook his head, “Well, it’s late. I should get back to work!” He walked to a snow blower in a driveway and started it up. Instead of removing snow from the sidewalk, he drove the snowblower directly into snowbanks and redistributed the snow into once-cleared walkways and driveways. I can’t recall how long I stood there watching him, before convincing myself that I was dreaming and headed home. It was only when I had woken up the following morning, I realized it was not a dream. The already-cleared walkways and driveways were covered with snow.
III.
The next time we attended goblins’ one-legged dance, the Devil charged a literal arm and leg at the door. As the Devil took our limbs that would be given back after the performance, he said in earnest mien, “Thank you very much,” with a familiar twinkle in his eyes. We smiled back at him politely, acknowledging the inevitable…goblins, who once danced miraculously with unwritten script, were now employed by the sewer’s grime. For now, the Devil directed their choreography and wrote the script.
INSTANT NOODLES 