A Most Important Message

 

Inside January the air was so brittle it felt like at any moment it could shatter into pieces and fall to the ground.  Our coats and scarves were no match for this weather, and even inside our gloves our fingers were frozen.  Everything hurt.

Our thoughts were no longer on our destination but on survival.  The next few minutes would tell.  We moved like shadows across a landscape that had forgotten warmth. The trees stood as skeletal witnesses, their branches etched against the sky like cracked veins. Somewhere ahead, a flicker, maybe a porch light, maybe a hallucination—dared us to believe in shelter.

But the wind had teeth, and it whispered doubts with every gust. Our footsteps crunched like breaking bones, and the silence between us grew louder than any scream. January wasn’t a month anymore; it was a verdict.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the blinding snow pelted us like buckshot.  I couldn’t remember ever having a winter like this.  Was this all a part of the global change in weather that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.  Is winter going to be the final curtain?

Almost impossible to keep an eye on the distant light our path became a jumble of missteps and slips.  It was hardly a straight line, which didn’t help a thing, but only prolonged our exposure.  I could feel my cell phone vibrating inside my pocket, but there was no way I was going to remove my gloves and try to answer it.  They'll just have to leave a message.