It is easy to get complacent here, out in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, the house was warm, the dogs were walked, the critters have been fed, and all that remained to do was for me to take a nice hot shower and go to bed. I wanted to read a few more chapters of Don Quixote, which is my current literary masterpiece (and that is a loosely used term) that I am trying to read through. For those who think it is all about windmills, there's a thousand pages of the 'adventures' of the crazy knight errant, his nag, and luckily his companion slash squire, Sancho Panza, who is at least slightly amusing. The rest is... well, in serious need of editing.
Now, it is not nearly as bad a book as Ulysses was, but it also isn't nearly the fun and joy of Moby Dick. So occupied with like thoughts and banalities, like finding some clothes for the next morning, I was fumbling around, tripping over a suitcase that Harold was supposed to empty out and put away, and while I am grumbling about that, I look up and see...
...something...
...but what exactly?
It is something on the wall, near the ceiling, a big smudge. Sure the smudge is probably something else, but I had left my glasses downstairs, so I can't tell what. Most likely it is a moth, I decide, and I don't deal with insects that are large enough to see without glasses.
So I holler for Harold, and for my glasses, my good mood in anticipation of an early bedtime (Don Quixote puts me out like a light) gone.
Harold, wearing his glasses looks at the smudge and declares it dust. "See, there is some on the ceiling too."
Okay, I am a very particular housekeeper, particularly bad, that is, but dirt on the ceiling? That's a bit much.
So I climb on a stool and it is NOT dust, no, it is a hole!
A bullet hole, to be precise.
The bullet came through the wall, bounced off the ceiling, and smashed into the vent cover on the other side, and, once I looked for it, I tripped over the darn thing on the carpet.
Okay, forget nice early night of refreshing slumber. Our house had bullet holes!
Harold actually found another one in the roof, and a chip out of the chimney, and what does the man find remarkable about that? The grouping! Tight grouping, he says with admiration.
Someone shot those real close together.
Okay, I am not impressed, and after a few phone calls and a visit from the deputy sheriff, I didn't get to get bored by Don Quixote for a few nights, because I was too wound up.
Sure, easy to say that it was a hunting accident, and I am not tall enough to have gotten hit by it, and that Harold took just a few minutes to fix the roof and the outside wall (the inside walls still need to be repainted), all those are intellectually true and emotionally not at all comforting.
 |
| Could be a moth... |
 |
| ... but isn't |
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| Follow the path of the bullet |
