March 9, 2025 11:43 am
Anyone Lost A Rhino?
KISS a Kettle Inspired Short Story.
Flutterby On Fern
Anyone Lost A Rhino?
That was my first thought…
It was covid19 lock-down……a few weeks into it.
My circadian rhythm had changed, sleeping and waking hours had re-synchronized to a new-found schedule.
Sleeping was shortened to maybe 2 or 3 hours, then 12 to 14 [or more] being active. Crazy, but that was what my body clock wanted to do.
A day or two might have been lost on the calendar had it not been for the phone and laptop.
It’s rural where I live and there are no street lights.
The old farmhouse exterior is wooden slat siding, a smokey blue grey.
The kitchen wall has a set of French doors and two other windows that would beam shafts of light onto the wooden deck and the acres of field beyond.
It’s dark outside, the lights were off in the house, except for 2 baby night-lights that shed enough light, to walk safely to the kitchen without stubbing toes or walking on lego-type objects.
The digital clock on the stove showed 1.38, so it had to be 1.38 in the a.m. I could see one or two soft, porch lights from properties further away. Other than that, it’s on the dark side of black.
Turning on the kitchen lights seemed to have startled something outside.
A brushing along the wall sounded like a heavy roll of carpet slowly unwinding, shluu..fluumph.
There were also sounds of movement across the deck.
Wherlumphf, lumphf, lumphf…as if not being in an immediate hurry.
Was the movement footsteps?
It seemed like it was a [heavy] weight-placement type of movement,
a slow lumbering lurch across the deck.
I question and answer myself, (sometimes a 3rd and 4th by-standing ‘other me‘ having input)
That sounded pretty weighty ….didn’t it?”
“Was it weighty enough for it to be a human or bigger….?”
“Well, yeah kinda…I thought maybe…”
“As big as a child?”
“Nah, bigger,”
“OK a person maybe?”
“Nah, a bit bigger”
“A very big person?”
‘Nah, a bit bigger“
“OK…..a hefty very..ah…biggish person….a horse perhaps?”
[At this point, it was ‘go big or go home’….y’know?]
“Maybe, yeah, that is about the size of it, or even bigger…”
“Nah!” But….
I-aint-going-out-there-right-now-to-see-what-that-was!
I do not believe in supernatural mythical creatures, like the moth-man sasquatch or other stupid made up stuff.
I am not saying that people who believe in stupid stuff like that are stupid,
but some things that some people believe in are stupid. [my opinion}
I do believe that whatever that was, had size as a prominent attribute, and to cut a long story short…
My first thought was…if I lived in Africa, in a rural setting like this and that happened, I’d think….
“Wow, that must be a freaking rhino!”
But I do not live in Africa, I live in Canada. This is not a savanna -this is just north of Toronto, almost snow-belt area, it’s April, springtime and a typical plus 2 degrees C.
So….. my next thought was….
“Wow, that must be a freaking rhino!”
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