During the months that follow Autumn, Winter assails our lives. She flies shrieking in the sub zero winds and rakes our faces with her bitter-cold nails as she passes. Her minions march through the streets, crawl the grounds and climb the trees, wreaking their own havoc in her name. Snow hurls itself down from the sky, each flake a kamikaze flyer dashing itself to the ground with its army of comrades, littering everything in their white, fluffy corpses. The bodies grow colder, solidifying or slushing, making the ground slick and perilous with their rot. Ice crystalizes, making daggers of itself, awaiting the opportunity to release its tenuous grip on the heights they cling to, and lance down on our unsuspecting heads.
And every year, we fortify ourselves against Her and her Army of Elements with boots, hats, gloves, chapsticks, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. We arm ourselves with the anti-siege equipment of the season: snow shovels and blowers, plows and salt, lock de-icers and window de-icers. We hunker down in our warm bunkers to wait out the siege, knowing our victory is only a few months away when our slow but timely ally, Spring, will arrive to do battle with, and ultimately triumph against Winter.
Early one morning, my husband stumbled over the threshold into our fortress, wielding his snow shovel and winded from the morning's battle hauling the snowbodies from our walk and driveway. It's now safe for me to cross to my armored transport that he has warmed for me. I put on my boots and cross quickly, throwing my supply bag into the passenger seat and then hurling myself in behind it, pulling the door closed to block out the grasping winds. I engage the four wheel drive, the only defense against the Stealth Ice that hugs the roads instead of the branches and eaves, and begin making my trek to work.
As everyone knows, Winter employs another clever enemy: The Pothole Makers. Until that morning, i'd never seen any evidence of them but their destruction on the roads. Stopped at the sign on Colfax and 45th St., i surveyed the minefield before me, attempting to find a passable route. Out of the corner of my eye, i saw a slight movement a few yards ahead of me. Figuring it to be a small animal, i paid it no mind at all until i saw it again, fast and furtive, a few seconds later. I turned my head, pretending to be looking to my left for signs of traffic before entering the intersection, watching the area i'd seen the movement.
There! A small flash of light and an upward spray of debris! Keeping my eyes carefully averted, i saw several figures jumping up and down, and hauling something along as they moved with incredible speed to their next site. I pulled off into a nearby convenience store, and went inside. I crept back toward the window, and was rewarded with a much closer view of the figures and better cover. Several brownish, hunched over man-like creatures about an inch and a half in stature scurried out into the streets, carrying what appeared to be small sticks of dynamite. Quickly and stealthily, they worked the tiny explosives into the existing cracks in the street. When they were finished, they drew the fuses out to the shoulder where one awaited with one of those plungers you used to see Wiley Coyote employ against his nemesis, The Road Runner. The waiting one connected the fuses, pushed the plunger, and i saw once again that small flash of light and the debris flying upwards. After each explosion, they did a little dance and laughed and threw the bits of black-topping at one another like sinister children lobbing sharp black snowballs.
After watching this go on a few more times, i saw a couple more man-things arrive with cages. They hauled the cages up to the edge of the holes and opened them. Out of the cages poured amorphic pools of slime that looked like overgrown amoebas with two eyestalks swiveling around to guide them, and cavernous, gaping maws lined with row upon row of gleaming black teeth. The amoebas spilled into the holes, devouring the rock they came into contact with, enlarging and deepening the holes the TNT-wielders created. How vile, these secret agents of Winter! After eating their fill in one hole, they pulled themselves up onto the street and surged off toward the next hole. Insatiable, they were!
But here comes another car. Surely they'll be discovered? The amoebas swiveled their eyes toward the intruders and relaxed themselves in their holes, looking like muddy, oily puddles of dirty water and melted sludge. The car rolled slowly through the newly-cratered road, careful not to allow its tires to be eaten by these craters. Once the car was safely away, they continued their gluttonous work until the man-things came back to gather them back into the cages and take them away to a stretch of intact road.
Shakily, i got up from my spying-place at the convenience store window and rushed back to my car. I was now late for work, and no one would ever believe my reason. I sat in my car for a few moments, waiting for the adrenaline to pass and for my composure to return. There is a train that crosses Ridge Road at Grant Street, directly in my way. I decided to tell them i'd been stuck behind it. I looked at my ashen face in the rear view and pinched my cheeks to bring some color back into them. I tried on a couple of smiles, until i found one that looked passably natural, and completed my journey to work. I arrived safely, lucky not to have fallen victim to any of Winter's agents.
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