The Ice Monster

One by one, the street lights were clicking on. Jenny imagined that there was a switch and a hand in each one, connected to an eye that looked for the sun to drop too low, and made the hand flip the switch and turn on the light. Jenny had always been like that. She had loved the fantastic, and as she grew up, that stayed with her. She would invent the most amazing explanations for the mundane, and even when she knew how things worked, she would love to spin a tale of fantastic devices that did it instead.

She was walking down the street, and as she did, everyone she passed looked away. She pulled her torn jacket closer to her, trying to fight off the bitterness of the cold air, and the chill of the breeze. Her clothes were dirty, and her hair was a mess. What was left of it, anyway. It was spotty, falling out in places, showing the bald scalp. Whatever color it was supposed to be, you couldn't make it out know if you tried. Of course, that didn't matter.

Her jacket quite clearly used to be tan, but it was covered in darker brown spots of dirt, and black spots that looked like soot. There were flecks of ash, and all the colors just seemed to blend together, like camouflage on a soldier. Through the holes in the jacket, a dirty blue sweater could be seen, covered in the same mix of dirt and soot and ash, making it blend well with the jacket. Her jeans looked cleaner, but they had their holes as well, and through those, her skin showed. She was obviously in need of a bed, warm meal, and a change of clothes, not to mention a shower, but no one would give it to her. They all just looked away.

They didn't know her. They didn't even want to. She was just another thing to ignore. But before you assume she was crazy, with her fantastic world in her mind, dear reader, let me assure you she was not. She knew just as well as you or I what is real and what is not, she just had an imagination. She let it work to create the fantastic world around her as a distraction from the pain, and the cold, and the hunger, but she never mistook it for reality.

Anyway, she continued down the street, being ignored by everyone around her, and thinking about the little hands, and the eyes, and the switches in the streetlights. She hoped to one day share the fantastic things she saw in her minds eye, but she knew that day would probably never come. As I said, she knew her reality.

So she looked about for someplace just a little warmer. She had accepted that no one would take her in, no one would even pay any attention to her. But as she walked, looking for a little bit of relief from the cold, something surprising happened. She met a man, someone who didn't ignore her. Someone who said hello to her as she passed. She was still dirty and smelly, but this man said hello. She looked at him, and saw a man who stood upright, with his head held up. She wasn't sure what to make of him, but she saw that he was looking directly at her.

"You look like you could use a night away from the elements, friend." The man said to her. As he spoke, he smiled, and she thought... well, honestly she didn't know that to think.

"Yes, but where can I go? No one here but you will even talk to me, and they certainly won't take me in." Her voice was raspy, and she sounded like she was on death's doorstep.

But the man didn't care. "Follow me, friend. We have been working all week on setting up a place for people like you to rest." Her eyes lit up like torches, and she knew this was going to be a good night. "By the way, I'm Bill, and I'm from the church shelter on 5th street. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it."

"No," she said, "but I am excited. I haven't slept inside in many years, and these nights have gotten so cold lately. I can hardly believe I've survived as many of them as I have. And I'm Jenny." He turned, leading the way to this new place, and as she followed, she let her mind wander to see something wonderful. She imagined the man in bright, shining armor, standing before a monster of pure ice, which for so long had held her prisoner, freezing her blood by simply being in the same place. The ice monster gave him a look of anger, almost heated, though that was hardly a good description, as he cut the ropes that held her, and slashed at the bars of ice that imprisoned her. The monster came closer, swinging his hand back for a fantastic blow. But he would not be destroyed.

As they walked the four blocks to the new shelter, Jenny tried to find out more about this man. She had not heard anything about this church and their shelter, nor this man and his God. He answered what questions he could, and when they arrived, he showed her in to the beds. She had been on the streets so long, she imagined that she didn't remember what a bed was like. How wonderfully soft and comfortable they looked before her, not like the sidewalks she had become so accustomed to. And as she looked out across the sea of beds in this room, she saw many others in them, people she had seen on the street, but who she had never really talked to. Every one of them looked so excited, because they had a place to sleep, that wasn't cold.

As the weeks went by in the shelter, she learned more about this man and his God, and why they cared. She began to understand more of this church, and began to stop thinking of "his God" and start thinking of "The God". The church helped her to find work, and eventually she found herself a home. But she always came back to the shelter, every weekend, to tell the street children a story from the fantastic world in her mind. And when she saw Bill, she would say hello, and they would talk for a while.

I remember it like only yesterday, Jenny's first night here. And that was so many years ago. She still comes by and tells her stories, of fantastic worlds and amazing creatures, of daring heroes and heroines, of the amazing things that there are in there. And every time she tells one, the children are so excited, to hear of the worlds in her head. But I am excited too, because I know the ones she won't tell them, about the knight and the ice monster, and the king who sent her to that monster. But every now and then, she'll tell that story to a few of us who work there, and it reminds me why, when no one else cares, we do. Because of the people still out there with that ice monster.