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breaking the seal I tore the caulk off of my porch door this afternoon. Once I got a firm grip, it peeled off in large sections that resembled either very long and slightly dirty gummi worms or some nasty form of ectoplasm. Once I could open the door, I stepped out and kicked the last of the snow off the porch so that I could sit down and drink it all in for a few moments. As I sat there in my tee shirt and shorts watching and listening to the snow melt, I knew that spring was almost here. Soon the plans that I had made for the day were forgotten. Suddenly they seemed unimportant and could wait until tomorrow. All that I wanted to do was sit and breathe the air as the sun shone down on me and the snow. Spring brings a feeling of warmth and rebirth that people enjoy, but sometimes I just relate to it on a more practical level. For example, now I won't have to wait for my car to warm up when I drive to work and the days of brushing snow off of it are behind me. Since I had opened both the north and south ends of the house a slight current could be made and nurtured. Fresh air could roam through the house and sweep the stale air away. For the first time in months, I wanted to feel a breeze in the house. Later in the afternoon a noise could be heard coming up the stairs. Someone was crushing aluminum cans in the basement. I could gauge their progress by hearing the same sounds over and over. There was the sound of the first crush quickly followed by another. Whoever it was couldn't flattened the can with one quick motion. They had to step on it again and again. Metal slid against the concrete over and over. Soon a rhythm was established and I started to hate the sounds. It was annoying and I wanted it to stop. Why he or she chose that moment to do such a mindless task was beyond me. Better yet I wondered why they didn't do it outside where there would be less of a mess. When I was ten years old my cousin and I would crush cans for my grandpa. Soon we had a technique for following through with one quick blow. A person would stand on a can with one foot and slowly reach down to make a dent in the side. If they did it just right, their entire body would come down in an instant. The trick was not to get the tip of your finger caught in the folds of the can. Thankfully the crushing downstairs stopped when the other member of the couple came home. The prose of Fatal Light was more direct than that of Cold Mountain and in some ways it made it more real to me. Then again the nineteen sixties are closer to my grasp than the eighteen sixties. However, I do have to say that neither of them glorified war or portrayed it as romantic.
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