Mounds of Snow

Mar 26, 2008 - 12:46 PM PST

For reasons unknown to her, the city of Crampton’s winters seemed much harsher than in Murmur’s native town of Soothville, miles and miles away. Soothville and Crampton both had the chills that stained her chiseled cheeks pink, the snowflakes that came down at her in a barrage like mini-missiles, and winds that slapped her freckled face for faults she could never forgive herself for. To Murmur, though, her new habitat seemed to have a frost more red than blue, snowflakes that attacked with vengeance and winds that seemed to never stop chastising her for those secret sins known only to her soul.
She had arrived in Fall. Within days, she had missed the copper-colored leaves that used to garnish the sidewalks back home. Here in Crampton the land was balding; buildings clung to its scalp like a synthetic wig, with only little tufts of autumn around the ears.
Her own wild, orange hair poked out of her hat in bold bolts, her subtle youth a sharp contrast to the brash age of the city.
She told herself she loathed Crampton because she had always been a suburb girl, that the crowded streets, the lack of back yards, the cranky people simply didn’t suit her. But deep down she knew it was because the city had simply let her down. Her heart hadn’t changed like she thought it would when she left; memories still brought turmoil to her at night. This time, though, instead of the quiet hum of the heater helping to lull her back to bed, now she tossed and turned to sounds of sirens shrilling a sickly sound instead.
As much as she wanted to leave Crampton, the thought of returning to Soothville gnawed nervous holes through her lungs to the point where she lost her breath with the overwhelming emotions. No, she couldn’t go back. Not yet. Wait until the holes healed, then maybe head home. Home. Crampton would never feel like home to her -- just a place to live.
It was four in the evening on a Friday. Murmur’s boots sloshed through the brown sludge on the sidewalk, remembering once when snow was whiter and her eyes were greener. She watched the mouth of the local elementary school croon out kids, notes in a melody Murmur had been deaf to for nearly a decade. Some of the children scuttled across the street to where she was. She paid them no mind; what was innocence to her now, anyways?
Weiland was nine and had never seen hair so orange in his whole life. He gawked at the back of Murmur’s head in amazement, wishing he could just knot a lock around his wrist and shackle himself to her. Once thoroughly infatuated, he marched up to her, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Hi,” he chirped as she whirled about on her heel, “I’m Weiland. I think your hair is really neat.” As his stone-grey eyes stared up at her with blazing affection, she dully wondered if everything in Crampton was grey in some way or another.
“I’m Murmur.” Her eyes glazed over, but her feet began to drag against the muddy slush. This allowed for the boy to fully catch up, now striding alongside her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To my apartment,” she answered. Home buzzed about in her mouth, but her tongue swelled at the word as though it had stung her.
“Where are you coming from?”
“Work.” Home bit her tongue yet again. She swallowed hard and began to quicken her pace, her heels now kicking mud up her calves. Murmur focused on the path ahead of her, and saw now that the sidewalk up ahead was blocked; the street was plowed that morning and the white fluff huddled together in a huge mound on the sidewalk that was yet to be shoveled away. From under his white-blonde hair, Weiland’s eyes still beamed into her.
“I haven’t seen you before,” he stated, wondering how he could have let someone like her walk by him unnoticed in the past.
“I just got this job last week.”
“Did you lose your other job?”
“No. I quit my old job when I moved a month ago.”
“Moved from where?” He asked innocently. Her brow furrowed, and her feet grew sluggish.
“A million hearts away from here.” She said, her voice growing husky. His eyes squinted up at her, and his mouth turned crooked. She let out a halted laugh at his confusion, but her face quickly froze back to a frown.
“It doesn’t matter,” she continued, “I’m not going back.” Murmur raised her eyebrows, surprised to see the boy’s round cheeks ball up to form a smile. Then she realized he was staring at the pile of snow. He turned and grinned up at her.
They stood there in silence, staring at each other. Murmur’s ghosts grappled behind her eyes. She involuntarily jerked her head.
“Why did you leave?” He asked lightly, not noticing her face cringe as the question struck her face. She sighed.
“You wouldn’t understand. Let’s just say I made a mistake, and now I have to live with it.” As she breathed the words, they grew soft in her mouth. Weiland scrunched up his nose.
“Why do you have to live with it here?” He asked. She scowled, scuffed a boot, and watched a dingy car heave itself by.
“Because I thought maybe I could forget about it here,” Murmur confided in the boy, as if she had known him more than ten minutes. With that said she checked the road for traffic and started shuffling around the icy mound. Weiland laughed.
“What’s so funny?” She asked.
“This!” He exclaimed, and with the exuberance of that word he bounded up and over the mound, slipping and sliding, even getting his boot stuck in the icy mess for a few moments. After he jumped down, he turned and waited for her to finish stepping around the icy knoll.
Murmur gaped at the boy, her heart gasping as he fought his way through the obstacle standing in his path. She watched as the world inside her began to burst, her eyes growing greener under the glow of her new-found epiphany.
Weiland looked around him, and his face fell. “This is where I live. Third floor up,” He said slowly, and Murmur looked up at the dirt-encrusted face of the apartment building. She glanced ahead of her; she stood only a block away from her own apartment. With this realization, she started to trot away.
“Wait!” he cried, and she turned around, the look of exasperation on her face unnoticed by him. “Will you always be walking home from work?” He asked, his face a question mark. Her lips turned up to touch her dimples.
“I don’t think so.” She said, but as Weiland blinked back his disappointment, she added, “But thank you.” Her face had visibly softened with the said sentiment, and it made the lump of tension sitting on his forehead crumble. Now he turned and stomped up the stoop, into his home, the door slamming like a loud crash of cymbals, the grand finale to the youthful tune that had started from the elementary school. Murmur, though still unable to hear it, could now feel its vibrations with a new understanding.
Murmur encountered one last mass of snow during the last stretch of her walk. This one stood right in front of her apartment complex, a massive pile that a plow had gathered while driving through the parking lot. It glared down at her, and she saw her past, the reason why she left home. Home. She stopped to stare at it, and then checked the road for cars. But instead of tip-toeing through the sludge at the edge of the road, Murmur abruptly began to sprint up the mound.
It seemed as steep as a wall, but she dug her nails into its slushy sides, her knuckles burning in their passionate embrace with the ice. Red nail polish chipped off and speckled the white ice, looking like blood stains spattered across a new cashmere sweater. Her damp pants hung on her legs like heavy drapes, weighing her down.
When she reached the top, she took one long, hard look at the decrepit city screaming at her, in vain, and with a defiant brow, hurled herself down the other side of the hill.
The blood in her body sloshed about as she tumbled down, her joints cracking against the ice, but when she reached the bottom she leaped up and stood there swaying like a jack-in-the-box. After briefly collecting herself, she rushed up to her apartment.
Her face felt inflated and her body bloated as her flesh soaked in the heat of the room. Murmur’s eyes darted about the small flat; most of her possessions were still nestled into the moving boxes, tucked in by tissue paper.
She flitted about the apartment, picking up the things that she had strewn about, and shoving them into the boxes.
She came across a packet of letters, bound together by a rubber band. Her mother’s smooth script addressed the front. They were the only things her mother had left her; it was practically all her mother had ever owned. The letters all lay untouched. Murmur sat down and swallowed down her demons. Finally she stood up and gently laid the stack on the top of one of the packing boxes. She would read them; but not yet.
When everything was put away but the telephone, she picked up its receiver and dialed a number.
“Hello, I’d like to purchase a one way ticket to Soothville, please.” In her mouth she could finally taste the sweet word on the tip of her tongue: home.