Arms folded and scared, I kneeled over the back of the couch and stared out the window into the darkness. No headlights. For at least six blocks down the street, there was no approaching car, no signal of a possible return.
It had been snowing. Hard. The roads, they had said on the news, had been "assaulted." The temperatures had dropped still further. Beware the black ice, they warned, showing only a glimpse of the 36-car pile-up on the Interstate. Eastbound, just west of Grand River. There were several fatalities.
Still no headlights. Oh God. Come on, please. The snow had stopped outside the window. It was, in fact, eerily still now. Dark, but only as dark as it can get with an 18-inch blanket of glittering white draped upon the lawns, streets, and sidewalks, illuminated by the waning crescent of the moon. The bare branches of the trees shivered in the wind, sagging wearily under the weight of the night, the gravity of the sky. The houses sat stoically like toy soldiers, frozen at attention; they held their chimneys upright like bayonets, unfazed by the bitter cold.
Sitting next to the warmest heat vent could momentarily temper my anxiety. But now the furnace groaned wearily and shut down from the basement, hushing with one command the entire house. Goosebumps rose on my arms and legs; the silence was suddenly amplified; my apprehension grew exponentially. I had turned off the television twenty minutes ago, according to the clock. It had in fact been much longer.
...
Hope flickered in pairs down the street. A set of headlights approached gradually, fishtailing helplessly between the curbs. My eyes focused intently on the strengthening glow. "Come on," I whispered desperately, "come on." Three blocks before my house they turned cautiously into an unfamiliar driveway (thankful to be home, no doubt) and vanished. Again there was only darkness as far as I could see.
My urgency intensified. They were now two full hours late. My eyes began to water dejectedly. I fought it angrily, the hollow lump in my throat, the scorned tears on my cheek. I hated myself for crying, for not showing the proper courage. I scolded myself harshly and hastily wiped my face dry with the heel of my palm.
...
I began to imagine my mother's last thoughts, her last words, as she lay crumpled beneath the shattered glass and cold steel, shivering and bleeding helplessly. The ambulances wouldn't be able to get to her in time. The crimson streaks in the snowy embankment would mark the site of the wreck for the rest of the night and into the morning until the sky opened up again, callously whiting out the remaining evidence and moving forward like the rush-hour traffic. The roads would be plowed and salted by then.
I would get a call from the hospital. "I'm sorry, son… We did everything we could," and the phone would fall from my hand as I crumbled to my knees in disbelief, hands clenching fistfuls of hair. "Hello?" they would call from the receiver. But I would not hear. My eyes would be tightly shut; my head would be shaking in denial. I would remain there on the floor until someone came and found me.
...
I began to pace in the hallway. Past the kitchen, past the stairs, past the bathroom, into my bedroom and, after a momentary glance out towards the shadowy white corners of my backyard, back the same way. There was nothing else I could do.
My eyes struggled drowsily to stay open, but the prospect of falling asleep terrified me. What if I was to wake up the next day at noon and again hear only stillness?
I would look anxiously out the window at the undisturbed driveway. No tire tracks. The garage would be sealed shut now by 20 inches of snow. My stomach would churn mercilessly as I scrambled upstairs, nauseous with panic; the lump would be rapidly reasserting itself in my throat; the tears would be streaming uncontrollably down my face. I would turn the corner into the master bedroom and stand fearfully in the open doorway, finding the bed neatly made and empty, just as it was last night. And it will have been over twelve hours since their scheduled return. What would I do?
...
The furnace restarted with a grunt from the basement. The heat vent again warmed my bare feet, breathing gently into the room. My eyes first wavered, then closed involuntarily for several minutes, sinking slowly into darkness.
I emerged momentarily, dazedly rolling my eyes in an arc from the far corner of the floor past the painting on the adjacent wall and onto the ceiling directly above me, which faded magically from white to dark, taking me under once again.
Images rushed in from all sides like water until I was immersed. I descended gently until I reached equilibrium, and, suspended within, felt weightless, consumed.
It was ecstasy, the pure submission to it. It did not occur to me in that final moment of semi-consciousness to fight it any further. I happily surrendered, gaining composure in my oblivion.
But even that was ephemeral. I soon found myself scrambling frantically in a mist, helpless. "Oh God. Oh God. Oh please, God," I cried desperately. I looked up apprehensively and saw the plane. An explosion bellowed out fire and volume into the night sky and resonated for what seemed like an eternity. I collapsed to my knees, covering my bowed head with both arms and sobbing hysterically as hot shards of red debris rained down on me.
My face was scalded; my head pulsated with pain. The anguish and the guilt crippled me. I was left with nothing. I could not stop sobbing.
I thought for sure that I would drown on the floor of this raging sea, suffocated by heat and grief, engulfed in despair.
...
The sound of a distant echo lifted me from the bottom. The cool touch of a palm on my forehead extinguished much of the fire, and I again felt suspended, weightless, consumed. I remember catching a second fleeting glimpse of the ceiling.
Only moments later I awoke to the tear-blurred sight of my undisturbed backyard, glittering in the sunlight, and the sound of a teapot, clattering in the sink. According to the clock, however, it had been much longer.
Originally written in October 1998.
