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The weather was cold, just on this side of bitterly so, cold and sharp enough to bite at whatever exposed skin it could find. When a breeze blew, it was even colder. Regardless of the number on the weather forecast, it didn’t seem accurate. Surely it was colder than even that.

Richard did not, really, mind the weather in and of itself. Cold weather meant that, for the most part, he was able to run for longer. It kept him cool, after all. However, there was something to be said about the fact that cold weather could still your breath away, and this weather certainly came close to doing that to him. When he had first gone outside, he had strongly considered maybe not going for a run tonight. No one would blame him if he didn’t.

In the end, he had chosen to go ahead and go on his run around the neighbourhood. He abbreviated his normal route, knowing that letting himself get sweaty would be bad if he was out long enough to go on his customary loops. Richard was nearly halfway through his route when he felt the first tugs against his hair. At first, he thought it was a tree branch or something similar from one of the trees he’d passed under. He was tall, after all, and his hair was very long.

He realized, then, that there was laughter. Small laughter, enough that it sounded far away, which is why he had not—at first—registered that it was there. Even though it had likely been going on more than the tugs on his hair. He looked away from the sky and the stars to see what was going on around him, and that was when he caught sight of a very tiny flash of ice. It was there for only one moment before zipping away, and Richard instinctively slowed down to try and track its movement.

“Try” was the operative word, because it moved very quickly and was very small. Were those wings he heard? The pulls and prods and tugs and pokes increased, and he slowed his pace, swatting out with one of his arms to try and catch one. That failed just as surely as trying to actually see one, and so he turned his musing to wondering if he should go ahead and head back home. He’d about reached the end of his abbreviated route, anyway, he told himself.

Whatever was laughing and flying and made of ice kept poking and giggling, and so Richard decided he was going to head home. At the very least, he knew he’d be able to get a newspaper or something to smack what he was figuring were some new weird sort of bug. Turning on his heel, he headed in the other direction. For a moment, the little troubles didn’t follow him, and he thought he might have been able to outpace their flying.

He was woefully mistaken, he found out a split second later as he had to swat something away from tugging on the stud earrings in his ears. He quickened his pace a bit, finding the sound of their wings to be a bit irritating, to say nothing of the constant prodding and bothering. His doorstep could not come too soon, and he sped up further when he saw his house appear down the street.

Some of the bothers dropped away at this point, or seemed to at the very least, and Richard kept on course for his front door. He reached for the knob and swung the door open to let the warmth and light of the front hall spill outide. He hurried into the house, glancing over his shoulder as he did so. A couple flashes of whatever they were almost seemed to come inside, but did not actually do so. The heat and light seemed to repel whatever it was, and the last stragglers gave one last giggle and disappeared.

Staring with confusion into the night, Richard hesitated a moment and then shut the door before he got fussed at for letting the heat out.

Weird.

(686 words)