Title: Winter
Date: September 22nd, 2024
Author: Z. E. Wayland
License: CC0; To the extent possible under law, Z. E. Wayland has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
Water froze atop the pavement overnight. Skaters filled the park with bodies gliding on its surface. There were no new neighbors. No new skaters wobbled with the children. And teenagers filled their time before winter bid nobody go outside.
Robin walked in three pairs of socks, holding generation old skates. She knew all the faces and all the ones missing; hockey kids have migrated because a puck and stick went through her window. Her socks stay on when she comes home. Soon, the carpet won’t have glass and glass will replace wooden boards. Then, she’ll watch the snow fall, descend down like wishes from the dark.
Skates on the ice, Robin circled Emily’s unofficially reserved seat. Each time around like paired clock hands counting seconds without her. She was skater then a spectator then saying goodbye. Soon, the sale sign will be pulled and strangers shuffle in with smiles in Spring. Those new neighbors will never be like the Duttons. But, some day, the two will laugh together again at how Emily should have fallen that fourteenth time to avoid those unlucky numbers.
Snow blows through like sand. Robin felt the ice freeze like glass and will later feel it melt. As the winter blistered on and the skaters scattered away, the air chilled into unbearable cold, before it melted away and revealed the park underneath in the spring. She hung up her skates, but never for too long.