A Lonely Road

Flash fiction, 500 words. For Iron Age's Dec. 6 prompt, "The Route." Chores are more pleasant when you enchant them.

Image prompt “The Route”. https://ironage.media/prompt/the-route.html. Courtesy of Iron Age Media.

Daniel Drey was a lonely man on a lonely road.

A cold wind whipped his back and howled profanities into his ears. His horse plodded, exhausted. Ice crackled upon his woolen poncho. Daniel Drey was on a mission.

But would he survive?

The mountain pass was an icy labyrinth, a winding way, a passage forward toward the river Styx. Drey steeled his spine and wrapped his cloak tighter against his shivering frame. He required a special machine – yes, even in this weather, even at this late hour – and since he would not bend, Nature could but howl.

Sleet sliced painful rivulets across his exposed cheeks. The horse slipped. He fell hard into a stream of slush. The horse slide further down the slope and disappeared into the darkness.

Daniel Drey pressed on, his left sock and boot soaked through and quickly freezing. If he did not acquire this machine, his family would starve. There was no arguing, no room for negotiation.

A man had to do what a man had to do.

The darkness pressed upon him like a heavy sin, chilling his heart and robbing him of warmth and hope. And still he continued, maneuvering his frozen limbs across a treacherous stretch of snow and ice.

Finally – finally! He saw the light up ahead, glowing and blinking. For a moment he wondered if were a will o’ wisp, tricking him to his doom, but then a building façade transformed the dark mountain escarpments into guardians of goods.

The trader, was he awake? Daniel Drey would have his device, even if he must rouse the good man from his well-earned slumber.

Moment later – for Drey did not dare linger by the trader’s hearth, such was his urgency – he returned back out into the wastes, retracing his trek, longing for a machine that could carry him in warmth and comfort through the tortuous path.

And finally, after what seemed like eternity, with all fingers frozen, with nose running and eyes rheumy, he opened the familiar clapboard door and …

“I got it!” Dan crowed, brandishing the can opener as he walked into the apartment. The bodega’s $7.99 price was ridiculous, but you couldn’t beat the convenience on a sleety night.

“Great!” Willa, his wife, pecked him on the cheek. She was making dinner – nothing fancy, just chicken drumsticks, rice, and a can of corn to cream. Boxes from their recent move into the city were stacked near a little table. Their old can opener was hiding in there somewhere, but they weren’t going to find it that night.

She looked at his other hand. “But what about the milk?”

Dan groaned in defeat. He changed into dry socks and walked back out into the night.

Daniel Drey was a lonely man on a lonely road …