Post by Jake Cornwell on Dec 24, 2008 22:53:35 GMT -8
The snow smothered Portland like a hand over its mouth, dulling the sound of what little traffic there was running alongside the park. It silenced his footsteps as well, so that the only way someone would know he was even there was by walking behind him.
It fell in large flakes that clung to his eyelashes and covered his hair, collar and coat in no time. He looked down at himself and got a chuckle out of the mental image of himself as the abominable snowman.
Very precious few other thoughts had given him any reason at all for chuckling that day. Waking up in the grasp of his reoccurring nightmare was difficult enough to deal with. Hearing a knock on his motel room door while he was rinsing the sweat off his face was another thing entirely. Apparently the neighbors hadn't liked listening to his hoarse screams for Lisa or his other strangled, incomprehensible cries of grief and guilt - so they'd called the cops and reported a possible case of domestic violence.
Once that was taken care of, he hadn't been able to sleep. He'd sat for a long time at the rinky-dink little table by the window, feet propped up on the heater, and lit each match in the ashtray just so he could blow them out, one by one.
He built a little tipi with the spent matches and used the last two to light it on fire. There you go. Now Santa had a fireplace to get in through. Might have to lose a few pounds, though.
Nope. Went out already. Damn.
All out of matches, he had laced his fingers behind his neck and leaned back, staring out the window at the sky. There was no real sunrise to speak of, just a gradual change in the covering blanket of cloud from black to a dismal gray.
He showered at noon when he couldn't take his own sweat anymore and got dressed to walk down to the 7-11 type store down on the corner. He bought some Ding Dongs, a loaf of bread, mustard, two 2-liters of Mountain Dew and some Pop-Rocks. After paying for everything, he asked the clerk if she could spare any matches.
She didn't even wish him a merry Christmas.
He ate bread and mustard sandwiches at the table with some Mountain Dew out of one of the little hotel cups. He thought about calling his parents and sister but decided against it. They weren't any more likely to spread a single thought of good cheer than the clerk had been.
He did, however, come this close to calling Adrianna... rubbing his thumb over the card she had given him, he began dialing only to hang up the phone about three times.
She probably had family visiting, or was visiting her family. Maybe she was spending Christmas Eve on the phone with a long lost friend from high school, playing a yearly catch-up game. Whatever she was doing, she probably wouldn't be very tempted to come spend it with him even if he did offer to make her a Ding-Dong sandwich with mustard. Hell, she'd probably think he was making some disgusting pass at her and write him off as a bad job.
He ended up watching a god-awful Christmas movie on the local access channel, a movie so bad its only chance of inspiring tears was from being forced to watch it beginning to end without getting up. Jake didn't get up, but he didn't cry, either.
At its end, he didn't feel so much better about the world as he did glad the film was over. Restless, he got up, put his coat and shoes back on and went down into the parking lot to warm up the old Chevy. She tended to get cranky in the cold weather, but he coaxed her into it and eventually the engine started running as smoothly as it ever did, the radiator having kicked out enough heat to defrost the windshield and warm his feet to boot.
He had driven aimlessly for some time, looking at Christmas lights. There was something about outdoor Christmas decorations that was beautiful and lonely all at the same time. Inside houses he could make out the shape of Christmas trees through the curtains, occasionally a string of lights that ran up a banister or hung from a curtain rod. Lights that were cozy and warm and meant to be enjoyed by the family. But the outside lights, people just put them up and most nights remembered to plug them in, never really enjoying them. Outside lights were for people like Jake, who didn't have anyone to share a warm, cozy Christmas with by an indoor tree.
The roads were mostly empty by then, being so late on Santa's night and all, so Jake's only salvation from total silence was in the squeaking of the windshield wipers and the rumbling engine.
He saw the waterfront park and on an impulse he parked across the street, turned the engine and got out. Hands in his pockets and head ducked, he crossed the street and walked down to the path by the water, only distinguishable from the rest of the snow covered ground because it was a few inches shallower there.
The river swallowed up the snow that fell in it like a huge hungry mouth, and it was swelling up on its banks the more it ate its fill. His breath rose up in great globs of steam, his shoulders scrunched up against the cold. He hated the cold and really had no idea why he was out walking in it.
Except it was Christmas Eve, and he was alone again. His cell lay quiet in his coat pocket. He tried to whistle as he walked but it just sounded eerie in all that vast whiteness, and after a few seconds his numb lips weren't having any more of it anyway.
After a good half hour, he turned around and walked back to his truck, in no real rush to get there. It didn't take as long to warm up the truck this time, since he'd only left it sitting for a little over an hour. While he waited, he rested his forehead on the steering wheel and tried to hear the snow falling.
By the time the digital clock in the hotel room hit midnight, he was back by the window, striking matches just so he could blow them out again, one by one.
(This thread is closed.)