Bathroom Monologue: Two-Hour Delay

They armored up. Boxers, t-shirts, socks, jeans, another pair of socks that you pulled up over the ends of the jeans, polar fleeces, snow overalls, military boots, winter jackets, earmuffs and knitted caps. They didn’t want to shovel, didn’t want school to start at all, but in raiment that would make Iron Man envious, the boys were at least proud.

Leigh and Finnegan each took a shovel. They slung them over their shoulders like rifles – well, Leigh held his like a rifle. Finnegan imagined a spear. They marched onto the porch, Leigh clearing left, Finnegan right. In the distance a car’s tires snarled for traction on ice.

“The blizzard’s overtaking the whole state,” said Leigh, even though the snow had already stopped. “It’d be an emergency if, you know, it hadn’t killed the president.”

“Oh yeah. Washington is a wasteland now.” Finnegan went along. He cleared off the last and stood there, reflecting on the roads, ploughed but slushy. There was no traffic. “I’ll miss people.”

“We’re the last,” said Leigh, sidling past him to begin the path to the driveway. “Just me, you and Mom.”

“Good thing Mom can cook.”

A red SUV rumbled by. Both boys turned their backs to it, not even letting it violate their peripheral vision.

“Everyone wiped out. All the Gym teachers.”

“All the Math teachers.”

A harsh wind whipped their backs. Leigh stiffened and Finnegan wiggled.

“Quit it.” Leigh smacked his brother in the butt with his shovel. “You’re drawing attention.”

“From who?”

“The Lord of the North. He’s the one sending snow. Can only tell where we are if we move.”

Finnegan fidgeted to stillness. He glanced up and thought he made out a pale castle resting in the clouds. Of course. The Lord of the North.

Their path was made of big slates. Leigh cleared one square, Finnegan did the next, and so-on. Leigh brushed all his snow on the left side, facing the street. Finnegan turned around after one square to find his brother collecting all the snow he’d dumped and adding it to his leftward piles.

“What are you doing?”

Leigh pushed the drift up higher. “Building a wall so when the Lord of the North sends his orcs they’ll have a harder time getting in.”

“Orcs?” Finnegan stared across the street to the amassing hordes. Their bloody flags poked through snow-bent trees. “Are those orcs?”

“What else would they be?”

The Lord of the North sent another gust, and Finnegan turned his back to it. It blew his hood over his face, so that all that showed was a pondering frown. The orcs banged their axes on their breastplates in-between the tinkles of the house wind chime.

“I think they’re gathering,” Finnegan warned, trudging to the driveway. “We’ll need an escape route.”

“I made a rocket engine in case that happens,” Leigh said, shoveling all the same. “It’ll let the car drive over the snow.”

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“When did you learn to build rocket engines?”

“At camp.”

“You didn’t go to rocket camp.”

An arrow whizzed by, nearly taking off Finnegan’s cap. It dug so deep into the snow that only the feather showed. A black feather.

“Orc arrows?”

Three more zipped down, digging into the drift by the path. The boys dropped their shovels and dove onto the slate.

“They have archers?”

As though in answer, the wind pulled a fresh blanket of snow from the roof. Black arrows tore through it mid-air, pelting the side of their house. A few clattered down and bounced off the boys’ legs.

“Don’t move,” Leigh warned. “The Lord of the North can see you.”

“We’re behind the wall.”

“He’s in the sky. He’s probably telling them where to aim.”

“That can’t be how it works.”

One black arrow drilled directly into the slate between Finnegan’s legs. His eyes bulged. He knew someday that part of him was going to be very important, if it wasn’t eaten by orcs. He shimmied out and grabbed their shovels.

“We can’t shovel anymore,” Leigh screeched, taking his all the same. “We’ll be killed.”

Finnegan held the blade of his shovel over his head like a shield. Arrowheads dinged off the plastic like rain. Leigh gaped, then mimicked with his. It was kind of like 300.

They kept the shovels above their heads while they peeked over the wall. Orcs were crossing the street and beginning to ford the snowfield of their lawn. They carried bannered spears that fluttered in their Lord’s evil breeze. And they weren’t alone.

Finnegan asked up at him, “Do they have a cave troll?”

 “They can’t!” Leigh insisted. “It’s day out. Snow’s white and they live where it’s dark.”

The cave troll roared. The boys hugged each other, the sound shaking their bodies. The roar kept going, perpetual and inhuman, until Mom pulled out of the garage. It wasn’t a troll at all; it was the roar of a gigantic engine jutting from the hood, spewing jets of fire. She leaned out the window and called.

“You guys took forever out here. I’ve got your bags, now come on. The delay’s almost up and there is school today.”

“Told you it wasn’t a cave troll,” said Leigh. “And that I make rocket engines.”

He waddled over, no longer afraid of black arrows or Lords of the North. Finnegan stayed behind, huffing through his nose and thinking about Math quizzes.

“I wish it was a cave troll.”