SNOW DAY
Snow Day keeps a jar on the bedside table. The jar is full of crumpled
up pieces of blue paper. Blue like the sky. On the outside the papers
are blue like the sky. A stranger who walks into Snow Day’s room and
sees the jar might think it’s full of candies, some pastel Easter
candies. But they aren’t shiny like candy wrappers. Snow Day wakes up,
puts glasses on, and reaches for the jar. It’s that quick. The papers
sound like wind in a telephone receiver. Each day is a surprise. Snow
Day’s hand sometimes gets stuck, a bear and a jar of honey, reaching
for a new paper somewhere in the bottom of the pile. This is a routine
no stranger would ever see Snow Day perform. Snow Day picks a blue
paper ball from the jar, a new one. Hopes for a new day. The paper
looks the same as all the others on the outside. But the inside is
dark—inky and granular. And Snow Day knows this means today will be
dark too. Snow Day’s head will be full of static, and the lights on the
bus will make ghostly shadows out of the faces reflected in its moving
windows. Once last year, Snow Day pulled a paper with a woman’s face.
Eyes circled in thick black lines looked up and to the left. That
afternoon, a woman outside Snow Day’s office window fell forward into
the street over a broken stiletto and watched a heavy car slide right
into her horrible fear. Sometimes Snow Day pulls a blank paper ball, or
nearly blank, sees nothing but sunshine all day. The roads are clear,
and customers say Thank you. The dark gray day is slow. Snow Day
watches the minutes flip on a desk clock. The grocery bag breaks all
over the sidewalk. Rice and butter for dinner. Before bed, Snow Day
practices sticking a hand in the jar, wiggling fingers around in a new
way, pulling a pristine new blue paper. Snow Days runs two fingers
along the top page of a notepad, feels for texture in the red ink
lines. In a dream the sky is blue, and Snow Day is stuck behind a
window in the dark.
Jules
Lattimer