This happened several winters ago, in what I call the incident of The Cursed Can Opener.

Just before the first real big snow, I had stocked up on canned Slender-Tenders, and even had a pile of firewood ready. I was prepared for hibernation.

Or so I thought…

I had spent the last of my money on Slender-Tenders and realized I didn’t have a can opener, but just as I realized this I saw something glistening in the stream that had all but frozen over. Approaching it with curiosity, I found that it was a can opener just sitting on a rock.When I picked it up a shiver ran down my spine. This chilling feeling might have been enough for me to drop the can opener and never touch it again, but the happiness that came as a result of finding just what I needed kept me clutching at the cold metal.

‘My can opener!’ I heard a voice call from a distance, and my heart sank thinking I’d have to find another one, and with no money to do so. Yet the voice call again, ‘I’ve lost my can opener. Darn the luck! Where could it be?’

Now I knew the owner of the voice hadn’t seen me snatch the can opener, so I hid it behind my back, for the voice grew closer and closer until I could make out a face in the dark. A face of dirt and well-etched lines that spoke of hardship emerged from the forest. His gloves were tattered and his jacket stiff with filth. A homeless man, it seemed.

‘Have you seen a can opener, good sir?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I lied, and having only enough canned Slender-Tenders to get one person through the winter, I did not invite him in.

It began to snow as the homeless man and I parted ways.

Though I had walked in and out of my house hundreds of times without issue, I tripped while walking in that evening. The can opener slipped from my hands and slid under my kitchen table. I fetched it, crawling on all four, but hit my head when I tried to stand. At this time, the pain made me angry and I tossed the can opener away, but it bounced off the fridge and hit me in the nose. I yelped and went to kick the can opener for hurting me, but missed and hit the table instead. Gripping my paw, I noticed I had grown hungry. So instead of trying to get revenge on an inanimate object, I picked it up to open a can of Slender-Tenders. Bringing the can opener with me to the pantry stacked high with the beautiful cans of Slender-Tenders, I noticed the snow outside was high, nearly up to the window. I worried about the homeless man being out in the cold,  but my stomach growled and I quickly forgot him. Soon I’d be snowed in, but I had my meat and my can opener.

I reached for a can, and that’s when I heard a terrible rumble. The stacks of cans shook, and wobbled, and leaned in a giant metal wave over my head. I had no time to move, as a can avalanche fell on me, burying my body up to my neck. Dazed, I felt too weak to dig myself out and instead took a nap. When I awoke I realized I was still buried in Slender-Tenders, still hungry, and worst of all the snow outside had risen higher than the window. I was stuck inside with what I then began to realize was a cursed can opener.

My hunger was great, and I needed to eat before I re-stacked the cans, so I dug myself out of the pile and then searched for the can opener. I found it when it cut my paw with its sharp edge. When I tried to use it, despite bleeding, every can I tried slipped from my grasp. There were cans, cans everywhere full of food, but not a bite to eat. I felt weak and needed to eat, so I grabbed a large knife from the kitchen. Yet, when I tried to open a can with it I fumbled the knife, sending it flying in the air. It spun dangerously, glinting in the light. The can opener, too, glistened as if winking or flashing an evil grin at me. The knife finally came down sticking into the wood of the floor, barely missing my leg.

I caught my breath and tossed the can opener in the fridge, wishing I’d never lied in order to keep it, hoping to cool its apparent anger with me. But once the doors the fridge closed, the whole thing fell over on me.There, under the weight of the fridge I slept the rest of the winter away. Stuck, and hungry, I went from my husky normal weight to very skinny. By the end of winter I was thin enough to escape.

I manage to retrieve the can opener, and rush back to town. There, I asked around for the homeless man, and people pointed to a mansion on a hill. At the mansion, I found the man, but he was dressed well and cleaned up.

‘Just let me scratch this lottery ticket,’ the man said to me as he answered the door. ‘Would you look at that: I won the jackpot again.’

‘I found your can opener,” I said.

The man’s eyes lit up as he took it from my hands, but the lottery ticket blew away and landed in the river nearby as he did, ruined.

‘Darn the luck,’ he said.

Suddenly, behind the man, I saw his fancy curtains catch fire from the heat of the stove, and soon his whole mansion went up in flames. Turns out he had no insurance and lost everything in the fire. I invited him to stay with me for a while and share my Slender-Tender, so long as the can opener stayed outside. We ate until we had our fill, and my luck has been fine ever since.The once-again-homeless man, however, soon after mysteriously died. I’d made a point to bury the can opener with him, but it was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it is someone else’s curse now.

The End