Weather Disturbance, Conclusion
Apr 03 '04
The Bottom Line Copyright 2004 David Macdonald
Part three was here: http://www.epinions.com/content_3851722884
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9.
“Christy........”
A faint sound crawled underneath the heaviness of her head, burdened by a troubled sleep.
“Christy!” The sound was disruptive, kicking away the psychological mask from behind her eyes, which began to sting from the overpowering light of the morning.
Moments later, Christy was able to make out a clear figure of her mother.
“It’s past eight, Christy. Why are you still in bed?”
Christy’s eyelids were weak and puffy. Her energies could not open them any further, except to register that there was something beyond her self.
“Eight.......”, was all she could muster. Her brain registered the fact that, on normal days, her alarm clock was sufficient enough to stir her.
“Yes, it’s eight. You weren’t expecting another snowstorm, were you?”
Christy sighed. She could conjure wet pale flakes sorrowfully gliding across her eyes.
“Anyway, wake up”, quietly easing her daughter into a sitting posture. “You’re not going to stay home two days in a row now..... who’s going to baby-sit you?”
“Mom, I’m not feeling well.”, she sighed, her voice pouty. “I think....... I might have caught something from walking in the cold and snow yesterday. I really did......”
The only thing she caught was the aftereffects of a lethal caffeinated drink, but Christy hoped that her words would affect her mother, fool her into believing that this was serious.
Barbara covered Christy’s forehead with her palm, and did not find what she wasn’t truly looking for to begin with. “I’m sure that.... whatever you have.... can be cured by a good brisk walk in the cold.”
Christy was stunned. It wasn’t fair! Why was nothing going her way! Her mother brushed off Christy’s melodrama like a piece of dislodged lint on her sleeve.
“But, Mom... “, she groaned, dangling her head to her side in a show of false weakness, “I think I might barf! And I’d be too sick to clean it up if I barf on the classroom floor!!”
But her previous statement ended up sounding too excitable to be spoken by someone who claimed to be grievously ill.
“Maybe I’m dying!”, she continued, her eyes widening at the fear that her mother was as insensitive and as abrasive as those crude cartoon character on the television last night.
“Oh, stop it, Christy. Now get out of bed.” By this time Barbara was able to adjust Christy’s body in a standing position. But Christy would not be deterred. She rumpled her entire self upon the carpet, and defiantly stretched out, hoping to give her mother the impression that she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Damn it, excuse my language......”, her voice trailing off once she became aware of her profanity. She did not really think that Christy was so ill that she could not go to school. She looked like a kid who stayed up too late. Yet Barbara felt agonized -- if Christy really were sick, where would she go? Barbara had to work -- she missed a day already herself, and wasn’t going to stay home for the second day in a row...........
“If you really are that sick.... I’m sure that Leon will be able to pick you up when he goes home for the day.....”
“But that won’t be until two o’clock.........”, she sobbed, her voice covered in a aural pout.
Barbara’s lips soured. There was nothing else that she was going to do. She wasn’t going to reflect on what Christy insisted on. Her daughter was going to school.
“Well.... that’s only six hours away...... I’m sure that you can survive. So get up from the floor.”
Christy was defeated. Life was so unfair...........
10.
Her suitcases were fully packed, waiting for her inside the closet.
Erica did not have to be rushed, to make it to her departure time at 11 am from the airport. She only required herself to take out her suitcases, and the satchel with all of the needed essentials, before hailing a cab that would carry her to the Charlottetown airport.
But those simple, basic actions, that required no effort, were betrayed by the nature of her physical and emotional demeanor. She slept for three hours, with constant interruption. And when she had no choice but to remain awake, her eyes hurt. Nothing that her eyes saw looked familiar any longer, even as those things appeared so clearly against her irises, and chiseled themselves brutally alongside the receptors of her memory. The jagged paintings in her brain would be difficult to scrap.
Erica couldn’t walk properly after stepping out of bed -- she had to cautiously skate her wool-embraced feet along the varnished hardwood floors, lest she wounded herself.
She passed by every room, which oozed longing and sadness from its walls.
The people that she used to live with, her parents that she used to live with, the pets that she used to live with, weren’t just other living beings sharing space with her. They became all too real.
Every sound that a life form could make reverberated against her eardrums. The breathing, the blood flowing inside the veins, the natural tremor from the sounds and shapes of words that pass through the throat.
She couldn’t withstand it. Her stomach hurt. Her heart beat faster. She reminded herself that this was what she wanted. She wanted to leave this unfortunate place. To find a better job. To find a better university. To find a better life.
The damage had been done. Snow was all over the ground, obstructing everyone and everything from doing all that they desired. This would be the last P.E.I. snowfall that she would live through, at least for a very long while. She did not want to be one of those people, chronically trapped by the island winters. Trapped by this environmental metaphor for what lay here, if she did not leave.
She prayed for an expedient liftoff. She hoped that the pilots would be igniting the engines just as she stepped foot onto the passenger deck. The plane would rise from the runway, soar away from the city, and across the Northumberland Strait, away from the physical history of the land.
Leon had seen her last night. It was an awkward night, she could tell. He seemed too occupied, about the storm, about the arrogant person that he had to deliver pizza to. That had to be what it was. He didn’t seem to have much else to say -- which was too bad, really.
But she figured that he wouldn’t miss her too much anyway. She was abandoning him, and what he represented. She was not like him, and he was not like her. He seemed to slowly realize this during the final few weeks.
He’d just have to shrug his shoulders and move on. Just as she would need to.
She was older than him, anyway. He was still seventeen, while she was weeks before her nineteenth year. There were other men, in other towns, who were older and more sophisticated. Then she’d probably forget all about Leon, just as he surely would forget about her.
She had met a number of people on MSN, through a chat room populated mainly by people from Vancouver. She got to know a few of them, virtually speaking, so to say. She spoke to a few guys, a few girls, asked them about the best places to go, the cheapest rent -- whatever. Those would be her new friends. Those would be her new lovers. Whatever.
When she lands in the West Coast, she won’t be so mixed up and apathetic. The newness of everything will refresh the initial feelings she had when she wanted to move away. As of this moment, she was in an empty space, between her past and her future. Emotions swirled around her, fighting against each other as all of them bit at her, taunted her to choose one over all of the others. She just could not do that. She was too smart to fall for her hidden doubts.
She just wanted to get on that plane. Sit rigidly still on the seat. And forget about everything once it arrived to its destination..........
11.
The sky was a light comforting shade of blue, with only the infrequent cotton ball-styled clouds to prevent a monochrome air.
The ground, conversely, was nothing if not one color. What was formerly flat ground in autumn became rolling hills of white in the first significant winter event. There was a simplistic beauty to the final result. The flakes glittered in the sunlight like diamonds. The hills of snow were meticulously designed by the stubborn inspiration of the wind.
The city itself was officially functional again, although some of its inhabitants weren’t so lucky. Some of the driveways on certain streets were still filled in with snow, which meant that the kids waiting for the bus had to wade through the shallow yet thick streams of frozen water in order to arrive at the curb.
Some of the local kids were playing in the snow, while their parents performed the less trifling task of shoveling about the tires of their cars. The parents weren’t pleased about it, but they had no choice. They couldn’t afford to stay indoors and take an extended holiday.
Then the snowplow diverted from the main street into this tiny passageway, and the children gave a nice round of applause. The mother ceased her shoveling and rushed the children over to the front door and away from the path of the slashing plow.
Barbara’s own lane way was as equal to that of all of the other residents. She peered out of her window, observing the cleaning out of the neighbor's driveway, and hoped that her own thoughts would transfer themselves to the snowplow operator’s mind, and that he would be so kind as to finish up this one job, and move on to her own driveway.
She put on her winter shoes, and stepped outside to find out if the newspaper had arrived. It had. Of course, the front page made sport of the yearly tradition of the first snowfall. You might as well have made a national holiday of it.......
....... the growl of the snowplow roared more strongly. Barbara tilted her head toward the sound’s origins. And she smiled.
The snowplow was indeed about to empty out Barbara’s lane. It would soon be safe to drive through the driveway, and onto the street.
She backed away from the projected path of the snow, until she stood close to her front door. Her eyes wandered about the scenario, as the tractor sliced through the snowdrifts, before spewing out the random chunks and dust across the front yard, which was already well stocked with the white material.
Her eyes shifted to where the person sat, inside the tractor cab. She felt a curious awe upon discovering the identity of the person behind the wheel. A woman. For some curious reason, Barbara thought this rather intriguing. It had to have been the first time she ever noticed a female steering a tractor, even though there surely had to be many who indeed did such a thing.
But Barbara had been so accustomed to a certain type of person -- namely, a male -- driving such vehicles, that she only now became slightly aware how selective and stereotyped her memories were.
She watched the woman, who had no issue with chewing through the tough and clingy snow. Eventually, the job was done. Everything was wonderful again.
Barbara waved to the woman, who responded in kind. Barbara pointlessly called out her thanks, considering that her soft voice was not enough to crack either the literal glass of the tractor’s front windows, or the aural glass of the rumbling of the tractor’s engines. The tractor simply moved in reverse, onto the street once more, before driving away to deal with the next residential location.
12.
The pizza shop was open for business, as usual, but the parking lot wasn’t quite prepared to sustain that business. Many of the spaces on the lot were tolerable enough to use, but the remote sections of the pavement were stacked with broken piles of snow. The snails’ pace of the city work crews as they cleared the whole of Charlottetown ensured that it would be a couple of days before every square inch would be free for unobstructed use.
Rick was fortunate enough to be the pizzeria’s owner, and to be able to arrive before anyone else, before the shop even opened, and park close to the front doors. At ten AM, he would arrive to unlock the doors, just before three of his employee were to arrive. There needed to be three employees -- as lunch hour was typically the busiest time of the day.
Unless everybody was too preoccupied with shoveling the driveway to find time to eat.
*
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*
*
Ten fifteen. Two young people arrive, Caroline and Andrew. Both were appropriately dressed for the weather, and were unable to help but to track fragments of snow along the lobby floor
“Nice day outside.”, Caroline teased. She went, followed by Andrew, into the staff room, and hung her coat under the coat rack.
“Where’s Joanna?”, Andrew asked. “Wasn’t she supposed to be here with us?”
Caroline shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe she can’t get out of her driveway.”
“She lives four blocks away! Doesn’t she know how to walk....?”
Rick didn’t need add any weight to the conversation. It was pretty obvious what had happened -- the girl wasn’t all that concerned about work. She used the storm as an excuse not to show up to work, even if the storm had already left. But he added something anyway.
“Well, if Joanna wants to call up for a shift, I won’t be all that eager to open up a space for her on the schedule.......”
Rick steered himself toward the direction of the phone, embedded on the wall. He stared at it, wishing that it would ring. And that it would be Leon, saying that he would gladly skip school today just so he could fill in for the missing employee.......
13.
It was twelve minutes after ten in the morning. Or, wait? Was it fifteen minutes after.....?
Christy did not know what exactly was going on. She sat in her chair during math class, and experienced blackouts throughout. She felt her body weaken, and her head loosening from her weakening neck. Her head occasionally swung downward, while her eyes hovered between sleep and alertness.
A brash whisper rasped against her eardrum.
“Christy?”
What.......?
“Christy??”
Christy numbly understood that it was her friend Emily who made the whispers. Yet she was too tired to quickly reciprocate.
“Wha..... what?”, was the full extent of Christy’s phrasing.
“Ready for gym class today?”, Emily smiled.
Christy’s face rumpled in sleepy confusion.
“Finally we can get to go skiing!”, Emily said. “I’ve been waiting all month for there to be some real snow on the ground. The teacher said that once the first snowfall happened, we’d be able to take out our skis!”
Christy vainly wiped the invisible cobwebs from her eyes. She had recalled the day when the teacher made that announcement, and she had been looking forward to it, up until yesterday. She had been looking forward to the opportunity to expand her horizons, or to at least to be able to spend critical class time out of doors.
“I’ve never used my skis that I got for Christmas....”, Emily continued to whisper, “......but I took my skis with me today. I left them at the gym. This is going to be great!”
The bell rang, signifying the end of the math period. In another five minutes it would be gym class. In another five minutes, it would be the beginning of a weary trek along the deep, heavy snow.
Christy did not think that she’d be capable of skiing today. She would rather just remain on her desk, and rest her head.
Either that, or have another one of those enormous coffees. Man, they’re so effective for keeping one awake.........
14.
The wind still lingered, scraping the flesh on Barbara’s fragile cheeks.
She had her winter jacket on. She wore her gloves and her boots. This was the way it was going to be for a few months. There was no getting around that.
Just as there would be no avoiding what she was about to do right now. Try to start the car in this cool and blustery weather.
She switched on the ignition, only to hear the high-pitched circular rattle of a desperate engine. The insides of the car were desperate to escape the sheet of frigidity that coated it during the lengthy snowstorm.
“Damn it......”, she rasped.
A few extra seconds seemed like wasted minutes before the paralysis was
miraculously cured. A sigh of relief filtered between Barbara’s lips, made visible due to the frozen air.
And after all of that effort on the part of the car’s interior, she had to exert some genuine physical effort of her own. She reached underneath the driver’s seat, to grasp the miniature ice scraper, and stepped out into the air once again.
The car’s windows were insulated by a transparent layer of ice, and Barbara had to chisel away every last shard of it. The icy bits flaked away from the car as if it were the dust from a fine-edged piece of glass, being grounded into nothingness.
She squinted as the wind pushed the icy dust onto her face.
She desired more passionately to get into that car, as its inside became more and more warmer. But she needed to press on, and demolish the frozen water wall, with her woefully inadequate scraper. The scraper was little bigger in width than a spoon, meaning that she’d have to stretch her body over the front of the car just so she’d be able to get the scrapes on the window’s center.
From the corner of her eye, she could see the neighbors attempting to traverse newly-covered streets. Some of the drivers were cautious, with their cars moving at the pace of a brisk walker, but other drivers seemed to forget that winter was an added distraction. Those cars tended to fall off the intended path, as the tires
Barbara couldn’t decide if she was the cautious or the careless one. Depended on the day, perhaps. Or, maybe it just depended on the luck she had that day. If she didn’t skid all around the road, she was cautious. If she did, then she was careless. She felt as if she had no control over the situation anyway. It was never her doing. It was always the car. Or the snow on the road. Or other reckless drivers. Never her.
*
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*
*
Well, she was the cautious one today after all. So far, so good. She kept on her side of the road, and she had no problem in coming to a stop on a red light. Unlike a few other folks whose car’s were inches over where they should be when they did not have the right of way.
She noticed a familiar face on the opposing lane, inside the back seat of a taxicab as it waited for the left turn arrow. A young woman in glasses and with long cherry-red hair. Erica, Leon’s friend.
Barbara had hardly spoken to this woman. It seemed that Leon was more than likely to visit Erica’s house, or meet her at a third-party location, than for her to drop in. Barbara realized that she hadn’t seen Erica in weeks, maybe even months. And now, if the rumors were true, Erica would never be seen again in these parts.
The left turn arrow flashed, and the taxicab followed its instructions. Erica looked passively out the window. Her face appeared blank. Or perhaps it was contemplative, carefully observing what she would no longer be able to take for granted. Cruel snowstorms. Threatening roads. Frigid winds. Missed opportunities.
It was true. The weather was fairly similar throughout most of the country. But weather was only unbearable when the rest of your life was almost as so. Erica seemed to imply that this was the case. Where she was planning to go, truer opportunities awaited. There was just more of everything in all of those cities that were not Charlottetown. More people to meet. More chances to find a decent man, instead of the average ones that lived here.
Although, modestly, Barbara may have suggested her own son as a perfect counterpoint. At least he had some responsible qualities.
But none of this was relevant any longer. Erica gave herself freedom, and she used it. Barbara, on the other hand, was caught in a straight and narrow path, between point A and point B. Between her undistinguished but secure job, and her nice but often jagged home life.
It was the winter of her middle age. Ahead of her, the visibility was poor. She could not decipher anything except for her own physical self. And even what laid behind her was blurred. It was as if she never had lived all of those years, those years when she was married and raised a family, those years when her marriage fell apart and she lived as a single mother raising two kids in the best way that she could.
All that she could comprehend was this one precise moment. She felt detached from her past and her possible future. All that mattered was that her tiny, insular world not get sidetracked, not skid off course into a dangerous position. All that she had the patience to concern herself with was the hope that she could survive intact, amid the weather disturbance within her soul. Even though she was doomed to blindly stumble through a never-ending blizzard, an unrelenting wind.
....... and she would ask herself, will spring ever return?
END
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Member: David Macdonald
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Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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