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And towards the end of the winter storm, slow snow tumbling and stray flakes recycling in wind, ky began his afternoon nap and kas hunkered down into work. The window swirled with the strange weather and the idea of a winterstorm run was born. Thus went on the trail shoes, a bright yellow top, shorts and their pockets filled with et cetera and cell. Blockbuster was mapped as the destination, 7.5 miles for the out-and-back, the right distance for the day, and into the snow I trekked. Navigating the road's shoulder became the deal, with capricious jolts of movement visible in the tracks left behind, the alternating cold of feet and thighs, the expressions of a random passing driver, the strange emptiness of roads around UNCW. Ebulliance of motion. Inner-laughter became outer laughter as I passed a group of students working on a snowman. An angry-faced man in camouflage ripped a beat-up pickup into a turn where I paused, waved a neoprened finger. Arriving at the midway point, the deep warmth of blockbuster was almost lustful, was an embrace of mansuetude, allowing a luxury of stillness. Selections were made and wrapped, and I stretched back into the pale green-gray afternoon, where freezing rain and sleet and wet feet replaced the store’s heat. Simple endurance of Cold became the theme, a darker deal, Man versus Self which is Nature, trudging onward. Emotionalism passed into work as cars passed and weather pulsed and legs numbed. Only the journey matters in such lunacy, the completion of the passage, kicking Market street’s oiled slush and trusting shoes and strength-of-ankles to anchor upright the body on the next hidden-ground thrust. Parking lot ice-lakes, the asphalt mires where freezing rain bounced and dappled, shocks of cold against muscle, traffic rips diagonal against the path, legs beat & tread, beet-red, and sweat and sleet meet as one slices through the smell-less air, rain pulsing on cheeks and shoulders, gray light deepening into labored breath and tense back and the countdown of miles ticks off.
Then, the final passage pulses by the smoking chimneys of my neighborhood to Home: my numb wet face smiling at my wife who smiles, laughs a little. That was the proud mad moment, the climax of the deal. We each bellied up to a meal of rare pleasure, steaming bowls full of chicken breast simmered in a gravy of hot, buttered curry, sopped up with a hunks of crusted bread and clean rice. Honied and peppered chai at the table with her, the movies no longer relevant, really never were much more than an excuse for the errand, and Ky awakens, starts his languageless songs from his crib.
