The Not So Great Escape

“when the sun came up, and the snow finally melted, i was glad to see their lifeless forms exposed in the daylight”— this is the ending to a story that began monday morning. i was scraping snow and ice off of jenny’s car when my keys fell out of my pocket. i didn’t realize it until 15 minutes later & by then i only knew they were somewhere in the driveway. i didn’t have time to do a search and rescue, so i just grabbed a spare truck key and left the back door to the house unlocked. later in the day i imagined that my keys reacted to the confines of my pocket the same way an inmate reacts to reality of imprisonment: there’s a desperate desire to escape and be free. in my mind, the keys hatched a flimsy plan that depended on chance and gravity. they took the chance that there would be a distraction (snow), and they were hoping that the pocket that usually detained them would finally come unraveled so they could fall to the ground (it did). while the keys were missing, there were sirens, horns, and dogs in action, but i knew there was really no point looking until the snow melted.