Three people, one night, a long morning. January 13 & 14, 20--. One of our subjects is 18 months old, dressed in little more than a diaper. Another tries to pray himself to sleep but fails. The third drifts -- like the snow that began to fall around 10:00 the night of the 13th.
9:48pm, 13 January
The child heard the popping duct, and she waddled to the nearest register. Her hand touched the warm air. "Hot," she whispered around the opposite middle and index finger. She squatted down to look into the vent cover, but the heat brought water to her eyes and took her breath for a moment. She would have moved away if her feet and legs, which were both uncovered, had wanted to; she put her toes where the metal had warmed and smiled. "Hot," she said.
Then she cried for a minute because her stomach rolled and squirmed, there, while the warm air pushed strands of her hair straight back, but it wasn't long enough for tears to come because of it, and her knees remained bent, two wet fingers in her mouth, until the furnace quit.
10:00pm, 13 January
Snow. Father Harold Chestnut, his breath like smoke trailing behind him, walked through his parish, the flakes gathering quickly on his shoulders. The cold seeped into his clothes, then his skin, but he walked away from shelter. At a certain intersection, he stood listening. The snow hissed as it landed. His thoughts ranged with his eyes, thoughts of people in houses, thoughts of faces. Before joining the priesthood, Chestnut had studied to become an optometrist. The parts of the eye still fascinated him, and in his rooms hung diagrams and cross sections that he pored over regularly. So it was not strange when the heat and pressure began for him to imagine it gathering around the optic nerve, directly behind the optic disc. They gathered and his thoughts flicked and his mouth moved: "For He sends snow to the righteous and the unrighteous alike."
10:12pm, 13 January
The child pressed her face against the glass of a window overlooking the porch. Her cheeks spread and air from her nostrils clouded her vision for a moment. She watched the snow fall and sweep past. A moment more and she felt cold air as it came through the unlatched front door. A squeal of delight. A moment more and her feet took her down the steps, into the white.
4:17am, 14 January
Ice-rain. It fell slowly at first, in small droplets that created what can only be described as a tinkling on the windows of parked cars and sleeping houses. Soon, however, the sounds grew, and the tinkling became thumps: marbles from the sky. It lasted until approximately 4:45am, replaced with a drizzle that covered everything in a slick iron-blue coat.
5:15am, 14 January
Anyone looking from the front register down the center aisle, just past the beer coolers, would have smiled at the sight of the two men, one sitting, who were glued to the screen of the convenience store's security TV.
"Thank you, again, for this -- I know you have a lot to do."
"Harold. Why do you mention it?"
Jordan's cameras were mostly pointed at gas pumps and merchandise, but one caught the edge of the church parking lot and the walk across the street. This was the shot that Harold wanted to see.
"Yes," Harold said. "Okay, what time was that?"
"Uh, that was 3:27."
"This morning?"
"Yes, this morning."
The video played back a white scene: The concrete, the street, the edges of the pumps, all of it covered in snow. But at 3:27:34, a set of feet shuffled along the sidewalk in the corner of the monitor, making a trail instead of footprints. By 3:27:38, the feet were gone, but the line they made remained until 4:17, when the ice wiped them out.
Jordan and Harold stood by the front doors, and Jordan said, "And you found those outside the church doors?"
"Yes." Harold looked down. He'd put the diaper and the onesie in a plastic grocery bag. "They were wadded up on the porch. In a corner."
"Just a few minutes ago?" Jordan's question seemed obvious to Harold.
"I'm up early; you know that." In fact, Harold's inability to sleep through the night had led to their friendship.
"I know it." Jordan tapped his index finger on the glass counter and then pointed at the TV in the back. "I was meaning that was two hours ago."
Harold's eyes widened, and the next moment he was outside, berating himself for the delay.
Jordan leaned his head out after his friend but found nothing to say.
5:22am, 14 January
"Father Harold Chestnut. What can I do for you this early morning?"
"I found a couple things -- ah, good morning, no, I'll stand."
"They're in that?"
"Yes. Listen, I found these on the porch of the church. A diaper and a onesie. -- No, just listen. Sorry, but I already checked the camera at Jordan's -- Gas'n'Go's camera -- and we saw a pair of boots I think I recognize."
"You've been busy. Go ahead and sit down, Father. Okay, let me take a look. One dirty diaper, a Mickey onesie. Right, and?"
"Why would he have those things, Detective?"
"How do you know he had them? And who is he?"
3:07am, 14 January
The dollar store window was lit up all night, every night. Fluorescent tubes reached across the space and illuminated the closest aisles. His pack becoming heavy, Jamie stood here and tried to ignore the flashes of light. One arm at a time, he shifted the pack to his chest. Then the smoky liquid in the tubes over his head caught and held him until he felt the cold again on his lower back -- the shirt and coat had come up just so when he moved his burden. Now he stared as far down the aisle as he could. There were socks and gloves hanging on metal pegs in plastic bags. The packages looked like glass with glaring white sausages flickering on and off along the sides. His arms came up and around the pack, and soon afterward light from the window display fell only on footprints in the snow.
5:28am, 14 January
"Couldn't sleep. I walked to the church to start clearing the ice. And yes, I realize the figure on the screen and the objects I found may not be related. But --"
"And you don't think those could have been there for days? You said yourself that you don't go to the north side of the church often."
"The middle of the diaper. It was warm."
4:18am, 14 January
He heard the ice fall blocks away before it hit his window. From where he stood praying to see his own optic disc clearly -- "So as to serve my neighbor" -- he waited and pictured where the hail would hit next. A roof of tin, wood siding, onto steps that had creaked under his shoes just the day before in clear sunlight. And then it was heavy, the sounds all around him, and he lowered his eyelids while he whispered further petitions through the spaces of his first and second knuckles.
3:21am, 14 January
Jamie began to limp. He'd sat for a minute with his back against the big doors. The snow didn't land on him here, and after repacking his things, he stood up. With the weight on his chest, he'd lost his balance, slipped, and fell backward. The snow piled and ice coming. The heavy pack. Now a lump of pain in his hip.
10:33pm, 13 January
It wasn't long before the chill and the wet snow became too much for her. She turned in circles, but didn't know which way to go. Over and over she fell, her legs and arms soaked, numbing. A low wall made her stumble one last time. Here she squatted down, out of the wind. Up from her feet a warm sensation came. It crept into her knees, her thighs. Her head bowed. The point of her chin touched her chest, where the heart still beat, but slowly now, for the warmth was everywhere. She welcomed it.
5:35am, 14 January
"I don't see what you want me to do about it. I'll have a patrol car sent out -- "
"One?"
"That's what I've got."
"You've got more than one."
"Hey, what was that?"
"A man just crashed through the doors, hit his head looks like. Better come, Detective."
5:35am, 14 January
In his mind's eye, Chestnut saw Jamie before he looked toward the noise. "Have mercy." He followed the Detective to where they'd placed the fallen man -- it was Jamie! -- and the trail of blood on the floor led him to the large pack he thought he'd find with him. It was cold, and Chestnut's hands were cold, but that's not why they shook. The zipper stuck in several places, but the opening was enough.
10:45pm, 13 January
Jamie's booted feet rested under the tarpaulin, which stretched over his back and head, but the toes ached. The tarp shook in his hands. He held his arms out so the snow's path was blocked and both his pack and the fire might stay dry. With next to nothing left to burn, the flames petered out. Jamie stepped on the ashes and crouched down; he drew the crinkling plastic around himself, but the wind found every crack, and the cold seeped through.
5:38am, 14 January
"He's been bleeding for some time, but he's well enough to be under arrest."
"No -- he came here of his own choice."
"Doesn't prove much."
"The child. Look at her."
"I am."
"Don't you see?"
11:01pm, 13 January
Jamie let his knees touch the ground. Up around his calves the snow gave way, crunched, settled. He took out of his pack several things he'd come back for tomorrow: a cast iron skillet, crushed aluminum cans in a sack, bungee cords, and a crumbling book he'd found the day before. In another pile he set down things that would go back in: his extra pair of socks, the tarp, and wads of newspapers -- no, he left those in the bottom. There. Yes, a pulse. Now, the tarp back in, like this. And the socks, just so.
4:58am, 14 January
Father Chestnut. Harold. Yes, Harold. A decade and a year -- or was it two? -- and he still wondered at the fact that he, Harold Chestnut, had become a priest. It wasn't the job ahead of him, or the fact that he couldn't remember being so cold, that made him question his decisions in this particular moment. No, breaking up and clearing ice would be fine. He'd be able to see progress, know when the job was done. Yes, it was with a certain kind of joy that he stood at the northeast corner of the church, surveying the dark mass ahead. The lights in the street blinked off, as did the lights ahead of him: Both sets anticipated daylight. Too early, he thought. He'd have to wait. For a moment this fact made him think he should go inside until sunrise, but he didn't move. He stood there instead, letting his breath go up in columns. A prayer began on his lips before it began in his mind, but he was cut short and made still by the stars at his feet. The tears came then, warm, dripping down his cheekbones and freezing on the end of his bearded chin; they accompanied the pang in his throat, and the image in his mind of the cross sectioned eye hanging on his wall. All of him pointed to the stars in the ice, all of him that was and was not him, and the moment grew into and beyond time for Father Harold Chestnut, who was looking at the earth reflecting how it is in heaven.
9:48pm, 13 January
The child heard the popping duct, and she waddled to the nearest register. Her hand touched the warm air. "Hot," she whispered around the opposite middle and index finger. She squatted down to look into the vent cover, but the heat brought water to her eyes and took her breath for a moment. She would have moved away if her feet and legs, which were both uncovered, had wanted to; she put her toes where the metal had warmed and smiled. "Hot," she said.
Then she cried for a minute because her stomach rolled and squirmed, there, while the warm air pushed strands of her hair straight back, but it wasn't long enough for tears to come because of it, and her knees remained bent, two wet fingers in her mouth, until the furnace quit.
10:00pm, 13 January
Snow. Father Harold Chestnut, his breath like smoke trailing behind him, walked through his parish, the flakes gathering quickly on his shoulders. The cold seeped into his clothes, then his skin, but he walked away from shelter. At a certain intersection, he stood listening. The snow hissed as it landed. His thoughts ranged with his eyes, thoughts of people in houses, thoughts of faces. Before joining the priesthood, Chestnut had studied to become an optometrist. The parts of the eye still fascinated him, and in his rooms hung diagrams and cross sections that he pored over regularly. So it was not strange when the heat and pressure began for him to imagine it gathering around the optic nerve, directly behind the optic disc. They gathered and his thoughts flicked and his mouth moved: "For He sends snow to the righteous and the unrighteous alike."
10:12pm, 13 January
The child pressed her face against the glass of a window overlooking the porch. Her cheeks spread and air from her nostrils clouded her vision for a moment. She watched the snow fall and sweep past. A moment more and she felt cold air as it came through the unlatched front door. A squeal of delight. A moment more and her feet took her down the steps, into the white.
4:17am, 14 January
Ice-rain. It fell slowly at first, in small droplets that created what can only be described as a tinkling on the windows of parked cars and sleeping houses. Soon, however, the sounds grew, and the tinkling became thumps: marbles from the sky. It lasted until approximately 4:45am, replaced with a drizzle that covered everything in a slick iron-blue coat.
5:15am, 14 January
Anyone looking from the front register down the center aisle, just past the beer coolers, would have smiled at the sight of the two men, one sitting, who were glued to the screen of the convenience store's security TV.
"Thank you, again, for this -- I know you have a lot to do."
"Harold. Why do you mention it?"
Jordan's cameras were mostly pointed at gas pumps and merchandise, but one caught the edge of the church parking lot and the walk across the street. This was the shot that Harold wanted to see.
"Yes," Harold said. "Okay, what time was that?"
"Uh, that was 3:27."
"This morning?"
"Yes, this morning."
The video played back a white scene: The concrete, the street, the edges of the pumps, all of it covered in snow. But at 3:27:34, a set of feet shuffled along the sidewalk in the corner of the monitor, making a trail instead of footprints. By 3:27:38, the feet were gone, but the line they made remained until 4:17, when the ice wiped them out.
Jordan and Harold stood by the front doors, and Jordan said, "And you found those outside the church doors?"
"Yes." Harold looked down. He'd put the diaper and the onesie in a plastic grocery bag. "They were wadded up on the porch. In a corner."
"Just a few minutes ago?" Jordan's question seemed obvious to Harold.
"I'm up early; you know that." In fact, Harold's inability to sleep through the night had led to their friendship.
"I know it." Jordan tapped his index finger on the glass counter and then pointed at the TV in the back. "I was meaning that was two hours ago."
Harold's eyes widened, and the next moment he was outside, berating himself for the delay.
Jordan leaned his head out after his friend but found nothing to say.
5:22am, 14 January
"Father Harold Chestnut. What can I do for you this early morning?"
"I found a couple things -- ah, good morning, no, I'll stand."
"They're in that?"
"Yes. Listen, I found these on the porch of the church. A diaper and a onesie. -- No, just listen. Sorry, but I already checked the camera at Jordan's -- Gas'n'Go's camera -- and we saw a pair of boots I think I recognize."
"You've been busy. Go ahead and sit down, Father. Okay, let me take a look. One dirty diaper, a Mickey onesie. Right, and?"
"Why would he have those things, Detective?"
"How do you know he had them? And who is he?"
3:07am, 14 January
The dollar store window was lit up all night, every night. Fluorescent tubes reached across the space and illuminated the closest aisles. His pack becoming heavy, Jamie stood here and tried to ignore the flashes of light. One arm at a time, he shifted the pack to his chest. Then the smoky liquid in the tubes over his head caught and held him until he felt the cold again on his lower back -- the shirt and coat had come up just so when he moved his burden. Now he stared as far down the aisle as he could. There were socks and gloves hanging on metal pegs in plastic bags. The packages looked like glass with glaring white sausages flickering on and off along the sides. His arms came up and around the pack, and soon afterward light from the window display fell only on footprints in the snow.
5:28am, 14 January
"Couldn't sleep. I walked to the church to start clearing the ice. And yes, I realize the figure on the screen and the objects I found may not be related. But --"
"And you don't think those could have been there for days? You said yourself that you don't go to the north side of the church often."
"The middle of the diaper. It was warm."
4:18am, 14 January
He heard the ice fall blocks away before it hit his window. From where he stood praying to see his own optic disc clearly -- "So as to serve my neighbor" -- he waited and pictured where the hail would hit next. A roof of tin, wood siding, onto steps that had creaked under his shoes just the day before in clear sunlight. And then it was heavy, the sounds all around him, and he lowered his eyelids while he whispered further petitions through the spaces of his first and second knuckles.
3:21am, 14 January
Jamie began to limp. He'd sat for a minute with his back against the big doors. The snow didn't land on him here, and after repacking his things, he stood up. With the weight on his chest, he'd lost his balance, slipped, and fell backward. The snow piled and ice coming. The heavy pack. Now a lump of pain in his hip.
10:33pm, 13 January
It wasn't long before the chill and the wet snow became too much for her. She turned in circles, but didn't know which way to go. Over and over she fell, her legs and arms soaked, numbing. A low wall made her stumble one last time. Here she squatted down, out of the wind. Up from her feet a warm sensation came. It crept into her knees, her thighs. Her head bowed. The point of her chin touched her chest, where the heart still beat, but slowly now, for the warmth was everywhere. She welcomed it.
5:35am, 14 January
"I don't see what you want me to do about it. I'll have a patrol car sent out -- "
"One?"
"That's what I've got."
"You've got more than one."
"Hey, what was that?"
"A man just crashed through the doors, hit his head looks like. Better come, Detective."
5:35am, 14 January
In his mind's eye, Chestnut saw Jamie before he looked toward the noise. "Have mercy." He followed the Detective to where they'd placed the fallen man -- it was Jamie! -- and the trail of blood on the floor led him to the large pack he thought he'd find with him. It was cold, and Chestnut's hands were cold, but that's not why they shook. The zipper stuck in several places, but the opening was enough.
10:45pm, 13 January
Jamie's booted feet rested under the tarpaulin, which stretched over his back and head, but the toes ached. The tarp shook in his hands. He held his arms out so the snow's path was blocked and both his pack and the fire might stay dry. With next to nothing left to burn, the flames petered out. Jamie stepped on the ashes and crouched down; he drew the crinkling plastic around himself, but the wind found every crack, and the cold seeped through.
5:38am, 14 January
"He's been bleeding for some time, but he's well enough to be under arrest."
"No -- he came here of his own choice."
"Doesn't prove much."
"The child. Look at her."
"I am."
"Don't you see?"
11:01pm, 13 January
Jamie let his knees touch the ground. Up around his calves the snow gave way, crunched, settled. He took out of his pack several things he'd come back for tomorrow: a cast iron skillet, crushed aluminum cans in a sack, bungee cords, and a crumbling book he'd found the day before. In another pile he set down things that would go back in: his extra pair of socks, the tarp, and wads of newspapers -- no, he left those in the bottom. There. Yes, a pulse. Now, the tarp back in, like this. And the socks, just so.
4:58am, 14 January
Father Chestnut. Harold. Yes, Harold. A decade and a year -- or was it two? -- and he still wondered at the fact that he, Harold Chestnut, had become a priest. It wasn't the job ahead of him, or the fact that he couldn't remember being so cold, that made him question his decisions in this particular moment. No, breaking up and clearing ice would be fine. He'd be able to see progress, know when the job was done. Yes, it was with a certain kind of joy that he stood at the northeast corner of the church, surveying the dark mass ahead. The lights in the street blinked off, as did the lights ahead of him: Both sets anticipated daylight. Too early, he thought. He'd have to wait. For a moment this fact made him think he should go inside until sunrise, but he didn't move. He stood there instead, letting his breath go up in columns. A prayer began on his lips before it began in his mind, but he was cut short and made still by the stars at his feet. The tears came then, warm, dripping down his cheekbones and freezing on the end of his bearded chin; they accompanied the pang in his throat, and the image in his mind of the cross sectioned eye hanging on his wall. All of him pointed to the stars in the ice, all of him that was and was not him, and the moment grew into and beyond time for Father Harold Chestnut, who was looking at the earth reflecting how it is in heaven.
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