Fifty Years

The main characters are based on two real people, myself and Susan (the one I think I love but she is far away). However the events are purely fictional, and it takes place when we are much older...

The late March sun set behind another gray sky, and the morning’s freezing rain had added to the thick layer of ice that coated the sidewalks. He strolled slowly through the afternoon with reserved caution, hidden beneath the thick cloth that shielded the air’s chilling wind, which lingered inside the worst winter he’d ever known.

 

His work day had been long and hard. The stress wore him down. He threw off his shoes and lounged on the couch for a nap, closed his eyes and tried to forget, but that was impossible. His breath slowed as he fell into a deep sleep. Dana, his land lady, sat still in her chair with Hermione the cat curled up on her lap, glancing those far glimpses, and smiling sincerely.

When he slept, he dreamt. Of warmer weather … an ocean-red sunset … strawberry ice cream … shallow brooks … a childhood friend … and behind a black backdrop, the milky silhouette of a lover who had forgotten him.

 

He awoke, remembering nothing distinctly but his latest dream, which released an anxiety that steamed in his chest for the rest of the night. He could still visualize the image, but had forgotten the figure within it. When he breathed, short bursts of vapor trailed from the carbon dioxide that he released from his lungs. Her memory was like a cracking fire. He could not fall asleep again, and his more pleasant dreams had slipped back into the depths of his mind, where answers could be found but rarely stayed in the light for long. Now what he could not forget danced at the forefront. Who was she? He went for the door, instinctually.

 

“Goodbye, I hope to see you later,” he said to Dana.

“Goodbye, I hope you have a good time,” she replied in delusion.

 

He got into his dark blue car, turned on the music, and drove north not knowing why. He turned the air conditioning to the most extreme cold to quell his chest, because he liked to breathe in the refreshing chill of the cool air from the vents. The car was well enough frozen inside this winter anyway, he really only needed the breeze.

 

His legs were cold and restless. His eyes, in a sleepy daze, glanced straight forward and concentrated on the road and the other drivers. As he merged onto the salty highway, he took deep breaths of the frigid air to stay so relatively calm. He glanced at the panel to see the time. He breathed extra deep, rolled his shoulders, continued to rock his legs, and kept his eyes on the curving road, lined with snow and evergreens. The Beatles provoked his aging mind, and had a nostalgic effect on his mood.

 

“You were only waiting for this moment to arrive,” the stereo sang.

 

As he looked left into the dark green forest, the silhouette in his mind cleared away the white in front of her eyes. It was Susan, of course! The one he loved fifty years ago. He smiled wide in the fondness of her memory. Her gestures mixed his unrelenting refusal with instinctual care, and his speechless apathy with humane pride. He looked out the left window once more, and sighed.

 

‘I know she’s forgotten me. Will I tell her the truth or keep it inside?’ he thought.

 

He had already played out this act, but could he go through with it again? He knew it could be deadly this time. He knew, because he’d felt the tragic effects before. It had once weighed down his humble and meek body, which collapsed in the snow until he thawed that spring. It brought him to beg for an end to misery, to winter, to life. It was still impossible to know what to say this time, to gamble on her sympathy, or sit in a curios limbo, wondering what would happen if he stayed away. No one would blame him if he was silent. No one would even know he had been. But despite his soundless disposition, Susan had seen the angst inside his frozen composure then, and for the first time, she saved his life. Had he confessed his desperation? He could not remember. Could he dare confess it again?

 

The dark gray sky above the trees seeped into his mood. Slowly, with tired eyes, he drifted halfway into the shoulder of the highway. He suddenly widened his glance, gently guided himself back to the right lane, and shook his mind out of its daze.

 

He continued to drive north, turned up the stereo, and went a bit faster. He locked his hands on the wheel and attempted to refocus. He had to stay focused, or the moment could slip away again. He decided to pull over to stretch his legs and gather his thoughts. He checked the map and was only 40 miles from Pine City, her hometown, where they met in the summer while he was passing through on vacation. It was 50 years ago, but he remembered well where to go to find her cabin. He would count each mile from here on out to stay awake. He needed her help, or he would surely die tonight. He knew the risk he was taking, but was convinced the reward would be great if his luck was.

 

“She will be there,” he reassured himself.

 

He drove and as he promised himself, he counted every mile marker. He took his exit when it came, entered the tiny town and drove to the shores of the lake. He carefully maneuvered his way by memory down the snowy road, going extra slowly to avoid slipping. As he arrived at her house, only the window to her second-story room was lit, by fire light. He saw her clearly while she viciously wrote by the window, free in thought as the shimmering red heat flickered behind her. She was as beautiful as ever, with shiny hair and eyes. She noticed him when he closed his car door, and fretted as he walked to her front porch.

 

“Who is he?” she thought.

 

She heard him knock, three times. Anxiously, she left her seat and crept down the creaking wooden stairs. She pressed herself against the door and curiously stared through the peep hole at this cold face.

 

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Susan,” he said.

“How do you know my name?”

“How could I forget?”

 

She was startled by the situation, so she took a deep breath, too perplexed to take any action.

 

“I need your help, like you helped me before,” he said, and in his fear, his voice cracked.

“Before?”

“It was,” he paused as he took a deep breath, “fifty years ago.”

“Fifty years?”

“Susan, come sit outside with me.”

 

She slightly let down her guard. His face was worn and thin, his hair was thick, and his complexion was innocent. She knew, assuredly, that she could trust his kind eyes.

 

“Give me one moment,” she said, and threw on gloves and a heavy coat.

 

She opened the door and stepped outside. His lean frame silently towered a shadow against her door, and covered her in his darkness. She looked up into his fiery eyes, and felt the familiar burning of his sorrow.

 

“Do you remember anything?”

 

His question sharply cut the silence with a heavy winter breath. He had to know. His jaw lowered acutely, his head hung down, his eyes memorized her penitent expression, and he bundled up tight in his coat. The hard wind stung against his face as it whipped around the air. His eyes watered, and his lip shivered.

 

“No,” she said softly, under the porch light’s guilty glow. “Nothing at all.”

 

Her bangs blew above her eyes. He had rarely seen them so narrow, and now they stared down as she swallowed her own sorrow, embarrassed and distant. She couldn’t remember, but she could feel the rope that tied her to him. It was cutting her stomach to pieces. The breeze whisked a single snowflake, the first of a storm, to stall and melt on her warm lips. He sat down on the icy porch swing, sick of himself, and lent his head back to watch the heavy snow surround the cloudy night.

 

He repeated the extinguished whisper, “Nothing at all,” and the steam within froze to a frost that coated his body from beneath his skin. The blow of her absent memory pushed him into the depths of winter, and tightened the rope between them.

 

“It’s starting to snow,” she said, with a gasp from the pain. “I will keep you warm.”

 

From watching the sky, his eyes turned left, and she was inches from his face. She took his left arm in hers, and rested her head on his shoulder. Her silky hair caressed his neck. She was wearing her green wool coat, the one he bought and left here for her.

 

“We should go back inside,” she said.

 

She raised her eyes and kissed his cheek. His spine shuttered from the singe of her red lips. He turned his head and her eyes were wider than ever. Her face, so close that her breath gave him chills, was tenderly somber. The apathetic tears caused by the wind slid down his face. Even though he wasn’t really crying, she swelled with pity and grabbed the hair at the back of his head and tightly pressed her lips against his. When she drew herself away, his face was still a pale blue, his lips a frosty white, and his eyes were glazed like ice.

 

“I’m, so cold,” he said with broken speech.

“We should go back inside,” she said, as she held her mittens against his face.

“Go, ahead. The weather, makes no difference, to me, if you don’t remember me.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Out here, or in, there, I just, can’t move.”

“Yes you can. You don’t have to do this. You’ll freeze to death!”

She shook his head in an attempt to remind him that he was not stuck. Her words, though, pelted and bruised his injured doubt. His chest sunk, because she didn’t believe him.

 

“I would freeze, to death, anywhere tonight,” he said. “I know winter, too well, because of you.”

 

They paused. As his eyes retreated toward the icy stones on the ground, she calmly studied his furrowed brow. He exhaled a buried sigh, which had been covered deep beneath his lungs, and rocked his shoulders an inch lower to the ground. She could tell that he was doing this to himself, that it was not her fault he sat motionless and sterile. She also knew that he had never made it through so cold a night before. No one could. She kissed his cheek again with a glow that imprinted itself to his skin. He lowered his eyes even further in reply to her kiss, but the peachy bright spot from her warm lips nurtured him.

 

“You’ll be the one, who ends up dead, too, if you think, you can help me, out here, with your sympathy,” he said.

 

He foolishly pushed her away, but she didn’t pity him. She wanted to remember what it was she had done before. All she could see was the vast, blurry sea of her past. He had once given her the answer, the cure to frostbite, she was certain, but she lost it in her own dreamy darkness. She saw his icy eyes, somber lips, cold glare, and the glow on his cheek.

 

‘I must give him more,’ she thought, and planted a long, wet kiss on the same spot.

 

The glow seeped further as her lips softly broke from his cold skin, and a distant tree branch at their backs snapped from the heavy layer of ice surrounding it. Its crack and ensuing crash echoed through their ears for only a few seconds, and left as silent as before with the night’s wind still swirling. The light above their heads flickered for a second before everything went black. Susan only knew the darkness, the wind, and the chilly taste of his frostbit skin.

 

“I’m still here,” she reassuringly whispered into his ear. “I haven’t forgotten you.”

 

He turned, and they rested in each other’s arms. He stayed reserved, but smiled, warm from the glow.

 

“Will you remember me tomorrow?” he asked.

“I’ll pray that I do.”

They drifted to sleep, lovingly, unsure.

 

----

           

The ice, which had conquered the state for five months, thawed in one morning. Though it had translucently suffocated every tree branch, a warm day loosened its grip. Pieces fell from the top of the forest’s sky like thousands of sharp, shiny rain drops illuminated by a clear blue day. They cracked as they hit the wet floor, and scattered like broken glass. The two survivors huddled close on the bench, which faced the trees in the same motionless embrace as before. The view from last night had entirely melted away. They had never seen anything quite like what they saw then.

 

“It’s beautiful,” he said, and they paused to stare into each other’s eyes.

“You won’t miss those cold nights, will you?” she asked, but he was silent, and only smiled.

He thought, “as long as you are with me, climbing down the depths of my will to pull me from the ice.”

Author's Note

My short stories need work, please critique heavily if you can find the time :-)

I wrote this in December and recently revised it.

Reviews

[April Child]

Well I noticed a few things...

First paragraph...

"hidden beneath the thick cloth that shielded the air's chilling wind, which lingered inside the worst winter he'd ever known." I think the 'which' in this line is wrong, maybe you need to have 'that' instead.

I think you can lose 'for a nap' from the second paragraph, it's not needed.

I must to give him more,' doesnt make sense... 8th to last paragraph.

Other than that I think it's a great piece of writing, rich in descriptions and with some lovely details. Delusional Dana did make me laugh. Just go over it with a fine tooth comb and you have yourself a great story.

[Kasey Klein]

(there's seven hours of my life I'll never get back)

I'm tempted to post it here, but it's 3700 words...

I like the images and the metaphor. I do agree with you: your short stories need work. Yet, you write some of the best poetry I've read.

Go figure, huh.

[Kristin Brecoe]

OVERALL- this is one amazing story!

Hermione[,] the cat curled up on her lap, glancing those far glimpses, and smiling sincerely.

and behind a black backdrop, the milky silhouette of a lover who had forgotten him.[ in this section, im sure you are talking about a backdrop AND a silhouette...but that doesn't seem to be too clear.]

found[,] but rarely stayed in the light for long.[it isn't until i read this last bit, that i understand the connection.]

[well, that was awkward. the dana and narrator bits...]

'I know she's forgotten me. Will I tell her the truth or keep it inside?' he thought.[I thought that was part of the lyrics for a second...]

curi[ou]s

[know when to use commas in front of ands...]

He carefully maneuvered his way by memory[i feel a pause here] down the snowy road, going extra slowly to avoid slipping.

with shiny hair and eyes. [shiny, that makes me want to laugh. it really kills the the mood for me. and can he really see eyes from that far away in the window when hes old...]

sharp, shiny rain drops illuminated by a clear blue day[again with the shiny, it sounds like a childs word...maybe i hang out with my friends too much, we tend to use the word shiny, but it doesnt sound deep or intelligent when we do.]

hmm, care to go a little more indepth for me about the ending. why you chose it? what you wanted it to mean?
----
-kristin

[Raef C. Boylan]

The way I interpreted symbolism of the cold, is that all his nights have been cold without her - i.e. lonely - and his need for her had grown so strong that the cold was manifesting itself as literal, affecting the world around him. Sorry, that makes it sound kind of lame - it's just that I'm not able to articulate it very well...am I on the right kind of track?

A lot of other reviewers have questioned the likelihood of her kissing him when she regarded him as being a stranger. I felt ok with that - part of the story's mysticism...sometimes people are compelled to act on compassionate instincts...or, if the memory of him was somewhere at the back of her mind, I guess the recognition propelled her forward onto his lips [lol].

You demonstrate good attention to both detail and language throughout this story; it's clear that you've put effort into making it a good read. There is some very good imagery and description here, dotted around, which made the story work for me. We don't necessarily notice these things as we read, but the way the story flows smoothly onwards is a testament to how well-penned it is.

There was enough character in this for me to like it, even though I understand that the style was more about focusing on events and not the people's innermost thoughts. That was pretty cool - you cut the balance just right. The word that pops up into my head for stories like this is 'vague', but that sounds like a criticism rather than simply my head's crazy association. I think it means 'abstract, a bit surreal' when it says 'vague'...but who knows? The style of it is kind of distanced, even at intimate moments...that's kind of what 'veguae' intended to cover too.

[Sorry. This review is dissolving into gibberish]

Finally, you judged the pace and length nicely. The speed was chilled [unintended pun] without the reader feeling like they're trudging along, and the story is long enough to feel complete without being overstretched.

Overall, good work. It's an intriguing read.
Thanks for posting it here.

[Raef C. Boylan]

I have to go in a minute.
Here are some queries, and then tomorrow I'll give you a proper review.
The talent exhibited in this story is pretty exciting by the way.

Queries:

"Her memory was like a cracking fire." - I get what you mean, and I think it does get written this way in some books, but it threw me because of the passage where this is nestled.
I suggest changing it to 'Memory of her'.

" "Goodbye, I hope you have a good time," she replied in delusion. " [that "in delusion" part reads awkwardly; you might be better off giving an indication of her being delusional. I know you gave us "far glimpses" and a cat earlier on, but we need a little more than that, and a little less than "in delusion" to clarify]

"while she viciously wrote by the window" [maybe it's just me, but "viciously" seemed an odd word to use when you're trying to portray her beauty for us...i get the impression you mean 'frantically'/'furiously' - something along those words...but better. Or, maybe, make the pen/pencil vicious rather than Susan herself?]

"His spine shuttered from the singe of her red lips." ["shuttered" - I'm not questioning the word here, just want to know what it's intended to convey. What does his spine do? Sorry, it's me not understanding].

"and the chilly taste of his frostbit skin." [frostbitten?]


Some quick notes for myself in case I forget:

1) cold = loneliness symbolism made literal?
2) good language - e.g. rope tying them together// good attention to detail
3)good pace and length

Ok, sorry about this.
I'll be back tomorrow.

[Vince]

oh I remember this one :) I thought the title sounded familiar, lo and behold it was. I don't know exactly what you changed. The big events seem still in place though. How fragile the ice is, and how utterly dangerous it is at the same time. The last line still sounds very familiar, so I don't think you changed that.

[Sandra K]

What a great story Travis!!! I bet it would be nice if it came true. Dreams make good stories, i cam to discover. I have a few that i am putting on paper. You're a great writer Travis! I can't wait to read more!

Sandra K!

[Shadows of Sight]

This was wonderful. The interactions between the two characters where well discribed and very emotionaly relevant. I think that the coldness thing in the later part was kind of vague. I'm not sure how the cold tied into everything else. But thats just me.
Overall i thought it was a great piece!

[Erin Phoenix]

I don't understand why she felt to trust this stranger...


It was a good read for me though... I enjoyed it very much :)

[KayOss]

Well, there certainly are many strong points. I love the imagery here; your vivid descriptions make me "see" the scenes you describe. Your description of her fire was so good that I swear I could feel the warmth! It was staggering. There is also mystery. You do not reveal everything right away; the reader has to read further in order to answer the questions that the story raises. Your story doesn't package up everything in a neat bow, answering all questions. Instead, it comes to a natural stopping point and stops, blending feelings of continuity with the feeling that this segment is over. You offer a glimpse into two peoples lives, which is also wonderful.

However, I'm puzzled as to what made her decide to kiss him. I certainly don't kiss strangers... not even familiar strangers. I know they have a history and are not really strangers, but she doesn't remember him. Maybe you could add something that would make it logical that she would kiss him; a memory or something. My other suggestion is to go through and comb through for spelling errors. There were one or two that I noticed. I was so into the story that I very nearly missed those too!

All in all, a very good story. Thanks so much for sharing this. If you think your short stories need lots of critique and some work, then I cannot wait to see what you consider to be good. :)

[Carl Taylor]

I really liked it a lot. Just that one line the gal below me pointed out is confusing, "I must...". I was a little confused by why she did what she did, she at first thought him a stranger then kissed him? I might be missing something but maybe a little more detail into her thoughts would in rich it more, but over all I loved it.