Hey, good to see you again. Sit back, kick your shoes off and enjoy the story.

James 'Tre' Hayes

My car slipped around the corner as if I were driving on soap and glided gracefully to the left and then to the right as I attempted to stay in my lane, or at least on my side of the road. I wasn’t being particular, but I did want to survive. Fortunately, I was pretty much the only one out, so there was only little oncoming traffic to worry about. Even so, it wasn’t easy driving, so I pushed my  glasses farther up on my nose and sat a bit straighter. In the rear view mirror I could see the dogs in the back gazing gleefully out the window, enjoying the ride. ‘Whee! We almost took that sign post with us!’. They were having a great time.

I was having less fun. It was snowing pretty seriously and we were sailing through a sea of solid white. The wipers were working overtime but were still having trouble keeping up; the soft, wet flakes covered the windshield between wipes, giving me a sort of on/off view of the world. This gave me an uneasy feeling. I would have felt better if I had been able to see out all of the time, but things were as they were and I was making do. I hadn’t realized how much it was snowing when I had left the barn and now I just wanted to get home in one piece. Even with my 4×4 I didn’t feel safe.

Driving down the road I lost track of time. Was it morning or afternoon? I couldn’t remember. It was a timeless, monotonous world. The heavy sky masked the passing of time, revealing no secrets except that it was day. The headlights of the other cars feebly attempted to cut through the desolation, but the snow and the sky were not impressed. Such ineffective contraptions against the colorless cold.

Snow covered fields huddled to the left and right of the road; frozen stretches, void of life. They crouched under the bitter sky like arctic expanses, smothered and lifeless under the crushing weight of the cold.

Here there was nothing, only vast, unbroken white fields; barren and bleak.

I drove slowly through the countryside, feeling heavy and unwelcome. The snow pushed down on the car and on me, and I concentrated on the rhythm of the wipers; world, no world, world, no world. I just wanted to be home; to feel safe, to feel warm.

And in between wipes I saw the fields; uninviting and cold, hosting no life, lending nothing to the landscape. Fields, no fields, fields, no fields. I was alone in the car, even the dogs had ducked their heads behind the seat; this world was no fun any longer.

And then to the left I saw a frozen corn stalk jutting defiantly out of the snow. It stood among the drifts, forgotten and abandoned; a lonely sentinel. And as I drove by it seemed to beckon to me, ‘Look here, under the ice. I’m here, I’m waiting.’
It stood alone in frozen testimony to the past fertility of the land. ‘I’m here’, it called. ‘I always have been, and I always will be.’

And I slowly drove on, fields, no fields, fields, no fields; concentrating on the rhythm of the wipers. It was a dangerous drive; it was cold, icy and slick. Even a 4×4 was no guarantee.

But I no longer felt scared and lonely because I remembered that spring was waiting under the ice and snow. And in the rearview mirror I could once again see the smiling faces of the dogs as we slid around the last corner. We were heading home.

Happy going home,
Lisa

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