It’s very warm here as August tends to be. I wrote a little something that I hope will cool you off. If only for a few minutes!
World at a Standstill
The silent delicate flakes flowed down in a way that belied their collective menace. The steady onslaught of the days-long storm had Nancy mesmerized as she sat with her nose almost pressed against the cold plate glass of her living room window. Discarded cups, used paper towels, and candy wrappers attested to the length of her vigil.
Nancy felt the comforting heat of the wood fire as it crackled and radiated warm security to the dark, wood-paneled room. She pulled the brown and blue plaid blanket around the gray sweats she’d put on yesterday. The woolen cloth helped ward off the tendrils of cold seeping in the window.
After she’d texted her boss that she would not be coming in yesterday, Nancy had turned off her phone and pulled the big brown velour recliner away from its mate to stand guard with her in a house silent of any electronic hums or beeps.
As the hours passed, her ereader died. It hadn’t been fully charged, which was a sin given all this glorious reading time. That was a mistake she would not make again. The weather hostage had mentally added that precaution to her prestorm checklist.
Every so often, the woman snuggled in the battered old chair would turn on her phone to check on the outside world. Except for the occasional warning missive about the Snow-Mageddon by the National Weather Service, the world at large did not seem to notice or miss that she was not part of it.
Nancy tried to peer through the heavy lace veil outside her protective bubble at the suburban house she knew was only thirty yards ways. She almost convinced herself she could see the blue color of its aluminum siding.
Almost, but not entirely. If she didn’t hold onto the fact that the other house was there, or that the rest of the world was just a flick of her phone’s power button away, she might have believed she was the only one left alive.
With that eerie thought echoing in her mind, the wind kicked up, and she could hear the sound of trees creakings. The heavy wet soldiers of the invading army gathered in mass on the boughs of the old Sugar Gum tree that towered over her house. The ancient gnarled branches dipped menacingly as she watched in frozen anticipation the way one would a car running a red light.
The spikey brown seed pods that were such a painful nuisance to bare feet all summer had taken on the look of iced cannonballs ready to be launched with glass-breaking speed at her window.