Snowmageddon

For just a moment, Alexus and I put our escape plan on hold. Before descending the stairs, we stood on the back porch, marveling at the sight before us. Inch after inch of snow had descended from the sky the night before, stacking up against the sides of houses and trees alike. Nature is apparently not a fan of favoritism. The small table on the back porch had been flung against the railing near the stairs, while the chairs it once accompanied stood silently in their original positions. Surprisingly, they were barren of the frozen blanket that gripped the rest of the world in stillness. And eerie sign of a silent struggle.

We made our way down the stairs, stumbling for but a moment as the untouched remnants of last-night's storm cracked and fled from beneath our feet, as if terrified of a retribution that we hadn't even considered. Meanwhile, the wind picked up briskly and seeped into the cracks of our clothing; an uninvited guest, still hellbent on keeping us away from the world that it recently laid claim to.

Despite the sunny day all around us, the atmosphere was starkly oppressive. Drifts of snow felt like they rose taller than your head, threatening to absorb you into themselves if you ventured too close. The sidewalks almost felt walled off, trying to keep us locked in. We were prisoners. Captives of a sentient force against which we had no defense. Or perhaps, just casualties of a war we were hoping not to be a part of.

Alexus' car remained waylaid as well. Parked in a safe location the night before, it now seemed to have even less of an escape than we did. The snow wrapped up into her wheel-wells and against her windows like colossal fingers both holding the vehicle in place and beckoning us to try to unearth the trapped machine at the same time. Our only way out, we retrieved the tools to free it from its captor. For the better part of an hour, we shoveled. We dug. We pushed and scraped. For a while, we even lost hope. We listened to the mechanical beast before us screeching and writhing in pain. It rocked back and forth in the covering of winter like a wild animal with a wounded leg.

I'm not entirely certain what straw broke the camel's back, but eventually Alexus' car burst triumphantly from its confines. And at that moment, the two of us were finally free. The grip of winter had loosened just enough to allow us passage. The landscape was different than it was the day before; empty, lifeless and cold in the wake of the upheaval. Neither of us quite knew what to expect from the new world. All we knew is that it was ours.