100 Proof

They peered through microscopes at snowflakes on slides, the six-sided patterns softening as they melted. These are not fluffy, the students noted, squinting down at the barbs in the ice crystals.

The professor put up a photograph of a high wall of snow carved along a road in the Sierras. Individually, he said, these may not be very effective, but when combined together, when millions layer upon millions, they can be quite significant.

The storm is coming, said a student in the front row.

A student in the back row replied, It’s already here.

On the long, narrow beach at the edge of the continent, she spread out a towel and sat, looking out over the water, over the relentless waves, the froth crackling on the sand, the pounding of the surf, every 10 seconds another wave, and another, and another. She sat with it, with all of it, with the constant noise and motion, and she thought about how long this had been happening, how long before she came into being, how long it would continue on, each wave, one after another, rendering stones to sand, drowning memory, effort, action, remorse.

Inside our houses, we huddle around candles, keeping single flames alight against the draft with cupped hands and close bodies. It is so dark these days, even at red dawn, even at high noon, and we must do what we can to focus on that which is warm and bright and alive.

We know there are others like us, clusters of hope in their own quarters. We will send search parties, adding one candle at a time until we have created a flame so bright, so warm, that the darkness will skulk away, muttering and weak once more.

There are so many kinds of darkness, she said. Sometimes it is soft and warm, but this darkness is so different. It is as prickly as a bramblebush and as impenetrable as a wall.

She was right, but he didn’t want to confirm her suspicions. He already worried she’d said too much, that her very speech could manifest even worse things than she had already described.

Sometimes, she specifically sought out locked doors, satisfied by the dissatisfaction of not being able to open something. She had spent so long sitting with opportunity, after all, and regretted not living a life of more strife, more challenge.

Now, it looked as if everything was about to change. As she stood up there, peering through the teleprompter screen at the cheering crowds below, her left hand twitched, craving complication at its muscular core.

She tried to remember what the landscape looked like before the heavy fog rendered it invisible. As she approached, looming shapes changed. A giant became a lamp post. A bear became a fir.

She kept driving, though she could barely see the road four feet in front of her headlights. She flipped her beams to high, then returned them to low after they overpowered the curtain that had fallen on her life.

In the absence of normal input, everything threatened. Every tenth of a mile brought her closer to a wreck. Every intersection presented a frightening, dubious choice.

We are walking in groves inhabited by crows, taking paths darkened by hanging moss. It is twilight, now, and we fear navigating when the last, small bit of light goes away.

I have matches, she says, but she only has three, and they are tucked inside a paper booklet, flimsy and quick to burn. We could light something, make a torch, but everything is soggy from the recent rains.

We will have to walk into the dark together, says another, and we join hands. Step by step by step we continue forward, because this is the only way through.