The moose is standing in my backyard at 2am. It’s January. Gusts of wind are swirling through its wide antlers, creating little snow eddies that sparkle in the glow of the deck’s floodlight. I’m slightly embarrassed that the animal is seeing me in my Jockeys. Only Nicki ever sees me in my underwear. At least these are from a fresh pack that she just picked up, first day wearing them. When they’re new they hug better and my junk bulge must seem more masculine to the moose vs old underwear that sags and could make it seem to the moose like I am a feeble thing. With fresh Jockeys straight from the pack I sometimes sort of strut slowly from the bathroom to the kitchen to the bedroom wearing only my briefs, hoping Nicki will look up from whatever she’s doing and compliment how nice my junk is getting hugged. Sometimes she even does. Hopefully this moose is noticing too.

We’re staring at each other, the moose and I. I know he sees me. He’s looking right at me. I don’t know if he’s looking at my junk or at my head, but he’s definitely looking at me. Maybe he sees everything at once because his eyes are so huge. Junk and head and everything all at once. What’s his deal though? He’s giving off vibes. Like magnetic vibes. And he’s ripped. I kind of low-key flex everything. Half-lock my kneecaps so the quads pop a bit. Diaphragm engaged for the abs, or for what should be abs. I do like a shoulders-pressed-back-and-down thing and subtly make fists so that my pecs and arms are a tad more taught–hopefully a vein or two in my forearms will start to show. I wish my junk was erect. That would be a nice flourish for him. But the new Jockeys are still good.

I’m not quite as hunky as I used to be but I’m still not bad you know? Still better than most of the guys I know from a belly and/or arms standpoint. There are some small pools of lingering confidence I can draw from. Christopher at work’s butt is extra flat and his belly is extra huge and I don’t know how his pants stay on. My guess is Christopher probably doesn’t get the same little boost of zeal from a fresh pack of underwear since his body just isn’t equipped for it.

As I do my flexing I also stand a bit taller and clench my jaw. The moose is like ten feet tall but he’s down in the yard and I’m a couple feet up because of the deck. So this stand-off, if that’s what we’re calling it, isn’t so one-sided is it monsieur moose? I say that in my head. The moose is jacked and awesome.

But he’s still giving vibes. He hasn’t flinched. Just staring. Huffing. He doesn’t give a fuck but also he’s kind of like what up little guy? I’m the little guy. He’s at the same time chilling out and posturing and the sideways bursts of snow don’t upset any part of his presence.

I lift the broomstick that’s wedged in the door runner and open the sliding glass door. I need a better look. Just a quick peek. The wind wastes no time and invades, spreading snow into the kitchen. My nose hairs freeze immediately. I can hear the moose huffing through the wind, its gigantic nostrils working and blowing visible breath. Even from this distance I can smell the thing. It reminds me of those subways in New York City. I’ve been there once when Nicki and I had to go for her cousin’s wedding and everyone stayed right near the park for some reason. We had to take a subway over to the ceremony when there were at least three hotels right by the church we could’ve stayed at.

Now with the back door agape, the moose and I have only the winter air separating our stares. Weird thing: I’m just kind of becoming transfixed here. Thinking about that wedding and that trip to NYC and thinking about how I can’t remember if I bought new underwear to go with that suit. I’m thinking about why wouldn’t I have gotten new underwear? It seems like I definitely would have gotten new underwear for that. I’m just thinking this stuff and staring at this giant specimen of a moose. And then I’m wondering how long has this moose lived around here? Where does it go when I don’t see it? How long have moose been a thing? Does this animal, its ancestors at least, know wooly mammoths? Does it know wooly mammoths in its DNA? I’m staring at it and thinking, thinking this thing seems ancient, like I’m looking at a scene in the natural history museum in New York. Inside its eyeballs it goes on forever.

My mind opens and moves freely from place to place. I’m vaguely aware of the blowing snow gathering on my things, my body. I can feel myself shivering but that seems far away. From New York City I go to Africa to the place from the show we watched last week where there were men mining in terrible conditions, I’m not sure what they were mining for just that it was terrible, like mud and danger and shitty equipment and I think they even had to fight a snake? I am there but it’s sad so I decide to leave the mine and explore and find the other places in Africa that are better with only the safari animals and not the people being mistreated and fighting snakes. I see the lions and giraffes and birds with long legs and across the shimmering surface of the plain I see the moose standing and chewing grass and looking right at me, snow swirling at its feet.

It’s too hot to bear so I leave Africa and go to outer space, traveling like a planetarium show blazing past satellites and moons and planets and comets, zipping right through Saturn’s rings which I see are actually huge rocks and ice and things. The moose with its churning snow watches as I pass. It stands on one of the ring-rocks gnawing space ice, smelling disgusting, blasting space dust and miniature universes from its impossible nostrils.

I exit the solar system and there is a nebula and inside that nebula I come to my mother’s bedside. She has no hair and is wearing a top hat and is flexing, ready to succumb. Why are you wearing that top hat? She opens her mouth to speak and her voice is a freight train. She explains in her deafening language and I understand. My mother rings a bell and the moose enters, also with a top hat. The snow it brings begins to cover her face. It covers her bed, the dresser, piles up in front of the window. It fills the room until everything is white and there is only snow and the reverberations of a muffled freight train. Dull white noise all around and the smell of the NYC subway. My body is gone and everything goes empty and silent but it’s the biggest and loudest thing there’s ever been.

Then I’m back, and standing outside on my deck. The moose is gone. Something is poking my hands and they feel heavy. I bring them close to my face to examine through the blowing snow. My fingers are black and I can’t move them. I kneel and awkwardly brush snow off my feet with the back of my hands. They’re bad. I need to get back inside. The kitchen slider is shut. My hands don’t work so I try leaning onto the door and sliding it open with my body, but it won’t budge. What the fuck is the broomstick doing back in the runner? I pound the door with my elbows, shouting for Nicki. Banging. Shouting. Stopping. Listening. Repeating. Nothing. Why can’t she hear me?

This isn’t panic. What I’m feeling is not fear, not panic. Need to keep saying that. But I don’t believe these lies.

I can run and jump and break through the glass. Can I? I’m pretty sure. But would it cut me bad and kill me? It could slice my throat maybe, right? Right through my main vein in my throat? Is it an artery? What’s the difference? Either way, what if I’m able to bust through that glass only to have it cut my throat and then I bleed everywhere all over and just die? But I will die out here on the deck if I do nothing. I will turn the color of my hands and feet everywhere. Would that happen standing up, just slowly freezing in place? Or would I end up on my hands and knees and look like one of those people from Pompeii? You can die from snow or lava and end up basically looking the same. Rigid and tense, frozen in time. So maybe I should do it, bust through the door. I should at least try. Right?

Moving to the nearby edge of the deck hurts like a son of a bitch. My bare chest and legs feel burned and my feet are going to snap off at the ankle. Each step is an immense effort and slow going. I will need more gusto than this to make enough of a run at the glass to get me through. I stand facing the door and do my best to take what I feel is a good, solid runner’s stance. I remember gym class in like 6th or 7th grade when Mr. Hemler showed us this is how you stand when you’re waiting for the relay baton. So I stand like that, ready to sprint for probably the first time since I ran away from that cat by the mailbox. That was last summer. It was a very aggressive cat. I stand flat-footed because my feet aren’t right. I know that you, as a runner preparing to run, should be on the balls of your feet, but what else am I going to do? I have to run at the glass starting from my disgusting, numb, flat-footed stance.

I have a runway of perhaps six or seven good steps to build up enough speed to break through the door. Should I jump at it right when I get close or will it be better to run straight through? Jumping would look more impressive but I think straight-through will be better. Just run into the kitchen like the door isn’t there. Though maybe should I protect my throat with my hands upon impact to lessen the potential for the cutting, bleeding, dying. Yes, that is smart, protect the throat vein.

I inhale a lungful of freezing air and go. I’m actually feeling pretty fast cutting through the snow and there is no pain as my feet pound the crunchy deck. Maybe wearing just underwear is helping me, like aerodynamics-wise. I am briefly the athlete I never became, running for the pride and honor of my family name. The door is the finish line and I will cross it–hands at my throat, like I’m choking in a restaurant–with glory. The glass nothing but the flimsy tape marking the end of this hellish race. I can see the other side.

I hit the door hard and am knocked backwards, slamming the back of my head onto the deck. I roll onto my side and blood from my face or head or both quickly saturates the snow in front of me. My head pulses. Up and down seem wrong. There is maybe a broken something in my shoulder area. I make a whiny and small gurgling noise that I’ve never made in my life, producing knives in my side. I want to scream for help, scream that I’m pissed, scream since I’m in a lot of trouble out here. But I’m afraid of the pain and scream nothing.

Seconds or minutes or eons later, I smell the subway. The moose is out there somewhere, all muscle, living like it’s supposed to live, wandering around the world as it was made, without interference. That’s not how it works for me. I’m on the wrong side of the door. A thing designed by some other people in some building in some other place to keep the outside out. The moose doesn’t even wear clothing. Time elongates and fresh snow covers my new Jockeys. From down here the deck looks like an infinite savannah extending into the void. Or maybe it’s the rings of Saturn. The ground rumbles like a freight train. And I flex.