Ice Storm

Ice Storm, 11.23.13

I walked out of work Friday and the temperature had nose dived from the mild seventies to the low twenties. Rain fell from the sky and froze on the trees, the ground, the shrubbery. The cars in the parking lot were slicked over with a perfect glaze of ice and snow and the wind beat across the icy ground so furiously it took the breath from my lungs and burned trails of fire on my cheeks.

Everyone was hacking away at the ice and snow. The sky was quickly turning dark, and I let the engine run and heater blow while I found my little de-icer stick and began to strape, whack, and shove away at the ice. It broke and splintered in dull, sharp shards. They slammed into my finger tips and rubbed them raw and throbbing with cold and pain. I was afraid of frostbite, I didn’t have gloves. The icy water trickled down my sleeve and burned my skin. When my fingers began to swell and pulse in freezer burn, I jumped into the car to rub them and blow shaky breaths of hot air onto them. When the throbbed calmed down to a dull ache, I climbed back out to keep hacking away.

It took over an hour to de-ice the car enough to drive off, and I merged carefully onto the traffic on the street. The roads were slick and the radio announced over fifty injury accidents were in the works in the metro alone. I turned on Christmas music but kept it low, strainging to see through the windows that kept fogging up on the inside and icing over again on the outside.

Too afraid to attempt the highway, I crept along the city roads at twenty miles an hour until I reach OnCue on Rockwell. I pulled in and finished de-icing the side windows and back window under the canopy of the gas station, using the cleansing wiper fluid and wiper available to finish the job. Only then did I feel confident to get back on the roads and drive faster, almost near the speed limit.

It took an hour to get to Panera Bread for my second shift. I was glad it was just a prep night and no one was waiting for me to arrive, so my delay wasn’t a big issue. And I was so glad that Levi works earlier in the afternoon so he would have moved his car to work before the ice storm came. As I worked in the back of the house, I wondered if Santana would be iced over when he got off work early in the morning. I wondered sadly if he would be mad if I drove down to de ice his car for him. Or if he had taken the time to de ice Anna’s. And if he even wondered who had been there to help me, and would he have even cared I was all on my own?

I worked, and sang along to Pandora, and wiped the tears when they came. I blamed it on the onoins I was slicing. But the dark blue and purple orbs were not the source of my tears. The tears always came from the same gaping hole in my soul, and no matter what I tried, it never healed up.

Be safe, Levi. Please.

Your star,

Rigel