Box Fan

The fan in the hallway struggles to bring some relief from the heat and lack of A/C in the building. The drone of the motor sends me back to a house that I once lived in. I'm not sure if it was in Wagarville or in McComb because I get those two houses mixed up in my memories. It was on an extremely early morning that my five or six year old mind could not compare with any other morning in my short life. I'm not sure I had ever really experienced that time of the morning before. There was so much darkness at the windows, and it was a weird darkness. It wasn't the same shade of darkness that happens when you go to bed or wake up in the night. Why do I think the air felt damp? Do I remember hearing crickets? Maybe not, we were inside the house. I was so sleepy. There was packing and hushed movements and this noise that I didn't recognize. There it was. In the hallway. Something different. It was a very large box fan, as tall as me and much wider. It was loud and it was so big that when I passed by it I dare not get too close for fear that my arm would be sucked in and chopped to pieces. It was obviously a real fear because mama held my hand tighter when we passed by it. Or maybe it was me that was doing the extra squeezing. I don't know where we were going or why my parents had the fan in the hall, but I cannot hear a box fan without thinking of that morning.