Heather Mihok

The hour was midnight. I crept out of bed slowly, pushing aside my three knit blankets. They were warm. The bare floor was cold against my toes and I shivered, standing erect. I reached for one of the blankets, a blue one, and wrapped it around my shoulders. It dragged on the floor behind me as I went to the bedroom window. Peeking through the stiff, wooden blinds, I saw that the weather was perfect. A lone street lamp of blackened metal and a dull, glowing head revealed a black sky and brilliant white snowflakes, seeming to appear out of nothing. The ground was lightly dusted with the flakes, which drifted to the earth in lazy swirls.
I was going to do it. I curled my frozen toes and walked on my heels to my dressing table. Winter was the hardest month. Our neighbors, the McKenzie�s, had moved here from Connecticut, and instantly announced that we were insane when it came to weather. They told us our southern winters were nothing to complain about, that it was practically a tropical breeze compared to home. Well, that was their home and this was ours, and this was all I knew. I lived with my parents who were whole-heartedly determined to live in Virginia forever. They happily moved there when I was little, and wanted nothing more than to die there and be buried together in the cemetery just blocks away from my neighborhood. I kind of thought their plan was sweet. I kind of thought I�d rather die than grow old in the same town, the same neighborhood, the same house I�d always known.
I craved adventure. There was none, so I had to create my own. I was creating my own that night of the snow. Sitting at my table, I opened a bottom drawer and pulled out a collection of things I had been gathering for that moment. Blue and white eye shadows, white mascara. Things I had stolen from the ninety-nine cent store. Things my mother forbade me to have at twelve years old. Pale blue lipstick. Translucent powder. I applied these things to my face with the arrogance of a novice, with cool respect for my own little plan. It wasn�t a big plan, but it was mine. I poked my eye by mistake with the mascara wand. I waited until the redness and the water disappeared before continuing the application. When I was finished I examined myself in the mirror. Face pale like sickness, eyes seemingly huge, popping out from behind whiteness and blue. I looked like a ghost.
My next step was to get dressed. I had chosen days before an unusual mishmash of clothing, silks from my mother�s closet, a T-shirt, a costume skirt from a Halloween ages ago. I brushed my hair and wrapped a satiny scarf around my head, long fabric trailing down the side of my face. I felt like a Hollywood star. I almost wished sunglasses would�ve fit into the plan. Slipping into a pair of Mom�s white, strappy high-heeled sandals, unearthed from the summer wardrobe closet, I quietly tiptoed to the front door. The lock slipped open with a little whoosh. I gently opened the door and stepped through it. Ice temperature halted me, but only for a moment. I took a deep breath of the stinging winter air and very softly closed the door behind me. I had no boots, no gloves, and I was in a cold, flowing skirt. It felt fabulous. I picked my way across the yard, leaving pointy sandal prints in my wake. There was nothing but silence, save for the hiss of snow. That hiss was wonderful, barely audible, a sound inside my head. I decided to lose myself in that sound. The street lamp was on the other side of the road, and I watched the baby snowflakes dance and twirl within the wan light. I slowly began to dance and spin as well. If I was silent, if I was beautiful, then maybe in sleep a divine being would whisper my neighbors and friends awake, and they�d look out of their windows and see me, and think I was a ghost, and be inspired. Because only a holy spirit could withstand the winter chill, with no coat, and no inhibitions. It felt like I was out there for hours. In actuality it was only three minutes. No one had seen me. I trudged to the door, chilled to the bone, head low.