By Ryan Quinn Flanagan
THE GREAT SNOW SHOVEL FIGHT OF 2024
We were in the middle of the winter deep freeze
when it happened. A single comment about where (and where not)
to pile snow. And having been locked inside for months
and gone squirrely, neighbours became combatants with a
single swing of the shovel. It bounced dully off the kneecap,
but reaction was swift. Another shovel coming back the other way,
grazing off the side of the arm. The first shovel was then raised and extended
as if a spear in some ancient Greek phalanx. I was up in the window
across the street, watching the entire thing. It has since been christened
The Great Snow Shovel Fight of 2024. I guess a few of the other neighbours
saw it as well. I wonder if they cheered as I did when the one shovel
clobbered the other over the head and chased him up the street.
Maybe I was a little bit squirrely as well. Rushing downstairs to plug
the iced-over truck into the house with an orange extension cord,
so that it had a chance of starting in the morning.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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