The Cold

Anata’s life had been spent waiting.

Waiting for Invitations to dances, acceptance letters to college, in lines for groceries, concerts, the bank.

Waiting. Always waiting. When she was young, she felt there was a sort of beauty in the emptiness of anticipation. The thrill of the potential of what possibilities followed, the life that she would have. Just on the other side of the next wait.

Anata was always a cautious person, even as a child, avoiding swinging too high and climbing trees with the other children.

At 37 Anata had never experienced what you might call alignment in her life.

She took the first job offered to her out of high school, working the front desk at a local community centre in a town with nothing significant about it. She moved into a modest home near the community centre and married a man she grew up a few houses from. She has checked the default settings. It was comfortable. It was safe. It was what was expected.

It’s not that she didn’t want more, it’s just that she always felt that the “big thing” that would bring her soul to life was just on the other side of the next waiting period.

So she waited. And waited. And then, The Cold came.

Chip, now a bouncy six year old with a wide grin and deep chestnut hair ran a few paces in front of Anata, making sure to avoid the smooth ice patches in their path. He was listing off his favourite animals, as he often did, with Anata making up silly voices and characters for each.

Sal, the seal, was a loud french painter who would always ask Chip what colours would match his new “master piece”.

Henry the hedgehog, was always asking Chip where his ball might be.

“What's the kicking game again? With the ball?”

“Soccer.” replied Anata, knowing that Chip knew her response, but enjoyed the familiarity of their routine.

“And how did they run with the ball without slipping?”

“It was before The Cold, there was no ice, remember? You know all of this.”

“I just forget sometimes.” Chip said in a near whisper as he looked down at one of the ice patches he had been skilfully avoiding in his walk. Reflected in the surface was his seraphic face, with round rosy cheeks, barely visible under the oversized feather down winter jacket that Anata had found for him two summers ago. All he had ever known was a world covered in ice, a world blanketed in temperatures so cold that outside time was limited to the two hours a day that the sun was at its brightest. Anata was the only other human he had ever met, and he loved her. His world was small and cold but he was happy.

As they walked carefully and slowly through the empty ice covered city, Chip pierced the short silence returning to his wide goofy grin and asked,

“Can I have a ball for soccer someday?I promise I won’t slip”

“Yes, my little animal, one day, we will find you a ball.”

Chip beamed. A ball would be completely unlike the toys Anata had given him, made from pieces of clothing or thawed branches of trees. Chip and Anata had very little possessions as they moved camp every few days in search of food and supplies that survived The Cold. Among Chip’s worldly possessions was a small heart shaped gold locket with a faint image of a blonde long haired woman with pale skin. It was a sharp contrast to Anata’s deep head of black curls and warm skin tone. He didn’t know who the lady in the locket was, but he liked to imagine that she was some kind of angel or spirit that would help them when they needed to find food or shelter. During times that food was hard to find and their stomachs became quiet in apparent surrender. He would whisper to the locket, asking that it show them where to go, and sometimes it seemed to work.

Anata was smiling, answering Chip's questions, like she had become accustomed to. Chip was just a baby when she found him waiting for death, clutching to his mothers frozen body kept barely warm enough under the layers of her coats and sweater. The woman had been overtaken by an apparent head injury, likely caused by a fall on the ice, and left out near an old gas station, now a glimmering relic of the past.

Anata has approached the dead woman looking for anything useful, a knife, some food, maybe a few pills of medicine, but instead found Chip and a small gold locket. She had known in the moment that her brown eyes looked connected with his that he was what she had been waiting for. In a world of ice and death, Chip brought life and joy into every moment.

She had never been able to have a child of her own, she had “waited” as she was accustomed to and her waiting time extended into The Cold after her husband, and everyone she had known had succumbed to the harsh reality of endless winter.

Chip felt like the end of waiting. Their days were filled with silly games and stories, a jarring contrast against the foreboding world of ice and frost. Anata began to feel in her body, even with the responsibility of a child. She stopped to appreciate intricate frost patterns on buildings, and savoured defrosted cans of beans and peaches like they were the ultimate culinary treasures of her life. She was finally alive. Truly in her body, appreciating the present moment.

“A BALL!’ Chip screamed, shaking Anata out of thought. Quickly glancing at the horizon, she thought Chip may be playing, making up one of his stories to entertain them.

Chip began running at a full speed, unlike Anata had ever seen. She had raised him to be cautious and respectful of the ice, always remembering the image of his mother laid out against the white show with crimson blood pooling around her head.

“CHIP! The ice!” Anata barked as fear poured over her and she began to run after him.

Time suspended for a brief moment as her body slid on the smooth icy surface towards Chip’s. She was no longer in control.

Her world went black for what felt like only a fraction of a second. When she opened her eyes, she saw Chip's large round brown eyes staring down at her, filled with tears that were beginning to freeze over.

She felt a warmth coming from behind her ears.

Chip clutched the gold heart shaped locket in his small gloved hand. Begging the woman in the locket to be real. To show him what needed to be done to save Anata, letting the reality of what would happen next sink in slowly.

“Will you wait for me?” Chips' frosty teared face gulped as Anata lay there, unable to speak, slowly being embraced by the cold, frozen world that had given her life.