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// HBS Prologue One: Ice, Snow, and Concrete 
// Story: Phoenix's Scrap Bin 
// by PhoenixHorseGuy 
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Prologue One: Ice, Snow and Concrete

I heard my shovel scrape against the concrete as I drew another line in the snow. I held the shovel up and carried my prize to the pile of snow at the edge of the yard where I dumped my payload. I then returned to the other side of the strip of concrete, ready to repeat the process again. 

The job wasn’t that hard to be frank with you. In fact, it’s one that I’ve had to do many times over the years. Just a simple fact of life in New York State. It snows in winter, and sometimes there’s so much snow that you need to shovel your driveway in the morning so you can get in and out of it.

Doesn’t mean that I didn’t find it incredibly boring and tedious though. Thankfully, I was almost done. Only two, maybe three trips more, then I could go back inside and warm up. Still had another hour and a half before I had to drive to work. I had enough time to eat breakfast, take a shower, get in my work clothes, and drive to work. Even with potential traffic, I expected to get there at least a few minutes early.

One of the very first things that got ingrained in my mind when entering the workforce: punctuality is key. Being late to consistently meant being chewed out, or worse, fired, by your boss. Don’t get me wrong, being a cashier isn’t exactly the greatest job in the world, but it pays the bills and it gives me something to do during the day. Really that’s all I can ask for out of a job.

I drop another payload of snow in my little pile. ‘Trip one of three done’ I think to myself as I head back to the other end of the driveway and begin my return trip. Was there a more efficient way to do this? Oh, absolutely. No doubt in my mind about it. But this method gave me more time to think. Better to get lost in my own thoughts now rather than later when I’m in the middle of checking out a customer or something.

But what thoughts was I getting lost in exactly? Just anything that happened to pop into my mind, really. Questions about life and the meaning of it, random mental reminders to do things like take out the garbage or feed the dog, what I might do on my day off tomorrow. Sometimes the mental jukebox would kick to life and play a song or two. Perhaps even combine a bunch into some sort of Frankenstein's melody of sounds and lyrics. According to my mind, Psychosocial by Slipknot works well with I/Me/Myself by Will Wood. Whether I can trust my mind on that is a mystery.

Eventually my mind drifted to an odd dream I had been having recently. One that had been recurring for the past few months. I’m no stranger to odd dreams. Far from it. I’ve been a victim of the classic “infinite bathrooms” dream for nearly two years at this point, and before that I had a few different recurring dreams when I was younger. But, as cliché as it sounds, this dream felt different for some reason.

Let me set the scene for you: It’s the middle of the night, a full moon hangs in the sky as I find myself in my old elementary school. The building looks run down, though it is clear that it had only been abandoned recently, perhaps in the past year or two. As I wander around I get the feeling that someone or something is watching me and my movements from the shadows, but dream me keeps shaking it off. Perhaps he thinks that it’s of no concern.

‘Oh, it’s just a raccoon!’

‘Maybe a family of bats set up camp here for the night?’

‘Probably just some homeless guy who took up shelter here.’ 

Okay maybe the last one would be a cause for concern under the right circumstances, but lets not dwell on that. This is the retelling a dream after all.

Anyways, I eventually end up in the gym. As I wander around, I see a light coming out from under the supply closet door. Curiosity gets the best of me (and doesn’t kill me, unlike the cat) and I step into the closet. Most of the floor has been replaced with a bottomless pit. Or, at least it looked bottomless. It stretched on for miles downward into eternal darkness. I also see a single, solitary light floating above it. Now, it didn’t look like a light bulb on a string or anything, but rather a ball of white light. Enough to let me see, but not enough to blind me.

As I’m standing at the edge of the hole, I feel something push me. Never saw who, or what, did it. I fall down the hole for a while until I eventually end up in a walkway of stones in a field of stars. I see doorways of white light on both sides of the path, and the path itself seems to stretch on forever. Before I have time to look around properly, a booming voice comes from somewhere above me:

“WHO GOES THERE?” 

I look up in an effort to locate the voice, yet nothing is there. Just the moon and more of the infinite starry abyss that this infinite walkway finds itself in. The voice speaks again:

“WE SAID, WHO GOES THERE?”

The voice was loud and imposing, but also feminine and… regal? Can you even use regal as a descriptor for voices? Eh screw it, I’ll use it as one anyway. ‘She’ was also pretty clearly pissed off about me being there.

“Uh… who are you? And where am I?” I ask to the disembodied voice, confused out of my mi-

*VROOOOOM*

The internal retelling of my dream gets interrupted as the snowplow comes down the street and pushes more snow into my driveway.

“Oh for fucks sake” I mutter to myself as I look at my newly acquired snow. It was a minor inconvenience, one that would only delay me by a minute or so, but an inconvenience nonetheless. I shovel the new snow out of my driveway and start making my way inside. I check my phone and see that it reads 7:42.

“Okay, my shift starts at nine. That gives me… one hour and eighteen minutes to get ready and get to work. Just need to hope there isn’t that much traffic. Hopefully I won’t be late.” I say aloud to myself. I stop for a moment before shaking my head and continuing on. “I need to stop talking to myself.” I mutter under my breath.

As I walk up the driveway, I fail to notice the large patch of ice that I was about to step on. I also fail to notice that I’m about to slip on it until it’s too late.

“SHI-” I don’t get to finish my explicit until I hit the back of my head on the concrete. Hard. Shortly afterwards I feel like blacking out, cold and in pain.

‘Hopefully someone finds me quickly.’ I think as the world above me descends into darkness.