Collaborative Story: Regionalism

Even the window was thick with frost, her house a closed-off candle beneath the weight of the blizzard. Wilting daylight crossed the panes as if the sun was setting instead of rising. As she stood before the square of glass viewing the world only the neon greens of the digital clock illuminated her frown, and the way her eyebrows were kneading together over the bridge of her nose. 7:02 AM, a Monday.

She drifted toward her least favorite of machines sometime later, or so it seemed. The time on the corner of the monitor told her otherwise: 7:05. Briefly she was connected to the rest of the world through wires and pulses of electricity rather than through the freezing cusp of the storm outside. Wind was battering against the small house's rooftop while she scanned her e-mail, but there was nothing reassuring in its text. The places outside apparently took no notice of the cold holding her in, rumbling against her hovel like a titan seeking entrance.

The technological glow of the screen vanished: she had clicked it off as she reached for her resolve. Only pale strands of Winter directed her now, shifting her surroundings to a palette of dust and charcoal. She moved to the door, but the door was closed. There were fingers of ice curled tight around the seams. No matter; she marched to the window. Throwing back the rusted latch she uplifted the lower half of the pane and squirming, writhing she squeezed through the narrow gap and fell into a bed of snow.

Powdered white dripped off her coat as she got to her feet. Brushing gloved hands over her front she approached the hulking mass of metal that sat quietly in front of her house. She employed her palms like primitive paws, scooping snow from the edges of the vehicle and cracking the ice laced over its windshield. When she found the silver lock at its side she set in a bronze key, dragging open the door. The pick-up--- a hand-me-down, a poor farmer's graces ---was dark on the inside, muffled by snow. She tried the ignition.

And she tried again.

The engine murmured faintly and then rolled over dead. The key could not revive it after that. The only hint that she might later recover the truck was the glow of the clock seated astride the steering wheel. Its faint light meant the battery was operational even if there was no fire to feed the horses beneath the hub. She closed the door and stuck her hands in her pockets, rubbing her fingers together. The clock had read 7:17.

There was no instinct to look up into the face of the storm. If anything the screaming wind was suggesting that she keep her eyes pointed securely down near her feet so it would not claw them away. Tugging the front edge of her scarf over her nose and mouth she chanced a glance anyway and fleetingly witnessed blue somewhere past all that white. There was no choice; she could not stay. But it was her own stubborn will making each foot advance into the blizzard, down what had been a driveway, across what had been a road. She was in the wilderness now.

The animals here did not have faces or names. They trundled out of the ice like labored, panting shadows and vanished just as quickly into the curtain of snow ahead of her. Most of them were slow, as though they bore a great pain in their passing. But increasingly as she neared her destination they lost their placidity. Lights the color of eye-corners bloomed in her face or behind her, charging past. She heard sounds ahead like two cats fighting: a great deal of screeching that culminated in the faintest of defeated whines.

When one of the thundering giants swerved off its pointed course and suddenly veered into her she briefly felt as if she was still walking. Only instead of trudging in the snow she was stepping along an invisible wire. The sky was beneath her and the sun lower than that. She awoke in a snowbank a moment later somewhat dazed. Moving her gaze brokenly over the white walkway that stretched out before her she noticed the car had stopped. Its engine was idling healthily while the occupant clambered out and approached her.

He was a raggedy old man. His head was bald, but he wore a knit cap on it as if it were a garish replacement for hair. He had eyes that were so badly wrinkled that his irises appeared like two blue lights in the center of his face. She knew him of course. She had known him for nine or ten weeks, since the start of the semester.

"Oh my god, you shouldn't be standing," he wheezed.

"It's alright Professor, nothing hurts," she replied. "Well I guess we had better keep going, busy hour ahead right?" She was trying to make him feel better, but he just appeared more confused than usual.

"What are you talking about?"

"The final exam..." she said slowly, as if she were repeating it to a deaf man. He shook his head, flakes of snow sticking to his reddened cheeks.

"Canceled of course. The power went out at my home so I had to come to the campus to send the notice. But I would never want a student in this."

The old man was right. She shouldn't have been standing.

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This is my interpretation of an outline prepared collaboratively with three other students on Wednesday, January 31st 2007. The assignment was to write a story centered around Fredonia, NY with the concept of regionalism in mind. Our focus was on two particular aspects of the Fredonia region, one physical (snowshowers) and the other more abstract (isolation).