When the cold wind coos, that’s when you know it is time to get indoors. What follows can freeze the blood mid-pump in your heart. At least, that’s what Dad used to tell me.
The water was that glacial blue. You know the type. It feels as though it is alive. Glowing. Water that has seen lifespans and generations. Epochs and eras. Water that fell to this earth thousands of years ago. Snagged by a cold snap. Released by the shift to warmth. Now it rests in a lake that borders my doorstep.
The wind was cooing. Yes. She called me. Whipped along the top of the glacial water. Sent ripples through the water. Ripples through my blood. Cut right to my core and near on froze my heart where it beat.
Clouds were gathering. A storm was approaching. And a big one at that. One of those storms my grandfather used to tell me about, when I was a boy. The kind that, according to him, ripped the house off the foundation with its wind, flooded lakes and rivers and roads with its rain, swirled and screamed and screeched as it tore at tree and root, mountain and rock, flesh and blood. Grandad loved a story. Loved to stretch the truth.
“Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story,” he’d wink at me when I was old enough to question him. “Or you’ll find it hard to get out of the way of my hand.” He could flip quicker than the weather on the mountains. By the time the clouds had begun to gather in his eyes, those dark, onyx eyes, it was too late. You were better to dig in and hunker down and wait out the storm rather than run. Running was dangerous. No. Running was life-threatening.
But this storm got me thinking, ‘maybe grandad wasn’t lying after all.’
It looked mean. The clouds were growing darker and darker, and covered the final battling rays of the sun as it dwindled on the glistening, glacial lake. The shadow rushed toward me, eating the light as it swept across the water. Wind howling. Screaming. No longer a soft coo. No longer a lullaby that tried to lure me out. That windy siren song. No. The wind was telling the truth now. She’d given up the lies and pretense and went right for the jugular with that brutal honest word. She wanted me out. She wanted me on my knees, praying, begging for mercy. I could almost see the spirit of her rushing toward me. Fifty meters. Fourty. Thirty. Gliding over the water, skimming the surface, sending shockwaves of ripples throughout the lake. Twenty. Ten. She was quick, but I was quicker. And I slammed the door in the face of the wind, and she tried to burst through the cracks, leaving only a whisper of the roars that were erupting outside.
I slumped down. Back to the door. My own wind puffing from my chest. Heaving with a wheeze. Catching in my throat and sending waves of dizziness throughout my body. Like I’d been carried round in a tornado and dunked into the glacial lake. Left dripping on the rocky shoreline. Shivering. Cold to the bone.
But I was safe. Cold, yes. Shivering, sure, through fear and the weather. Through fear of the weather.
My cabin has some protection. Whilst, as you know, the doorstep meets the shoreline of the lake, behind it is a fortress of trees. Spruce, to be precise. Tall and thick with deep roots. Clumped together like an ancient army ready to siege an enemy castle. Safety in numbers. Herd protection. Teamwork.
Behind them was a mountain. More rock than snow, even in the harshest winters. Bold and grand and strong. No loose rocks. This was my protection. Nature attacks with one hand and embraces with the other.
The fire in the corner was all but ashes that flickered with each barrage of wind on my door and windows. It just needed a bit of TLC. Some compassion. A soft word. A gentle nudge. Some food and, funnily enough, some air and - voila. It roared alive. Cast my dancing shadow on the walls. But I was all but dancing. Oh no. I was still and stable and waiting for the next artillery strike from the Heavens above.
“What more do you have to throw at me?” I taunted.
And, it vanished. Silence. It enveloped my cabin. The tremors had ceased, spare for those in my chest.
Until that silence was broken. At first, it was interrupted by a gentle rap. A tap. Then it erupted, like an encore applause, to a drumming. A thumping. The door hinges themselves joined in the chorus, squeaking and crying under the intense hammering that the wood was taking. And my breath caught in my throat once more. Frozen words clinging to my lungs. But my hands were ready. And they reached for the door handle.
Well-written. I could feel the cold—and it's forty degrees celsius here today!
More please 👉👈