Winter,
2002
24-Hour Short Story Contest
2nd Place Winner!
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THE NEXT
24-HOUR SHORT STORY CONTEST HERE!
TOPIC
OF THIS CONTEST WAS:
Curled up
in bed against the screaming blizzard outside, she tapped the remote
control and the television cast a pale light against the dark room.
As the screen warmed into focus, she sat upright and screamed. There
he was! On television! But he'd been dead for 10 years!
She wasn't at that nice place, though, not quite yet. She was at the point where her limbs felt numb and tingly and heavy as lead, the point where she could sense the blueness of her own hands, the point where she could feel a sluggish panic thudding through her chest. She didn't know a person could freeze to death in her own bed, but there you go. At her age, Ida couldn't help but know that the world is full of surprises. The blizzard had knocked out all the power in the neighborhood; by the time she woke up to the pitch black house and realized how cold she was, she couldn't peel herself from her stiff, icy sheets.
Snow pelted her window like something that wanted to come inside. There was no moon out, no streetlamp glow, but some of the flakes flashed like fireflies in the dark. She thought about the fireplace downstairs, the matches, but they seemed too far away to seriously consider. Even if she could sit up, even if she could get herself out of bed, she wasn't sure she'd want to bother with them. Ida decided she was ready to let go of any possibility of warmth. She decided she was ready to let go, period.
The electric blanket, frigid now, pressed against her; she could feel the heating element inside of it coiled like a frozen vein. She thought of her own blood thickening, slowing in the cold. She felt herself getting sleepy. This is it, she told herself. She closed her eyes; she felt herself sink down into her body, her body hardening like a sarcophagus around her heart. This is when I drift away.
Then a strange sound sizzled into the room and her eyes flew back open. There was a small dot of light in the center of her television. Feh, thought Ida, annoyed. Just my luck. A commercial interruption. None of the other electrical appliances had turned on, just this small radiance from the Zenith, buzzing like a chorus of mosquitoes.
The dot of light grew bigger, like a pupil dilating. She wondered if this could be the light people who had almost died talked about, the light they saw at the end of the tunnel. She never imagined it would come to her in pixels. Soon the whole screen was filled with light. The room took on an eerie glow. The buzzing grew louder. She could feel her heart struggle with a feeble surge of adrenaline. Sharp pains shot through her hands, her feet.
Then her husband appeared, crisp and clear, on the screen. Bernie, who had died 10 years before, standing in the snowy front yard with his camel hair coat and his plaid scarf and fedora. She felt a scream ricochet inside her throat like a bug trapped in a jar.
"Bernie!" Ida wanted to cry out. "Bernie, I've missed you so much!" but her voice couldn't find its way to her lips.
He heard her anyway. "I've missed you, too, Bubbeleh," he said, his voice warm and gravelly, as always.
"Now we can be together," She felt a warmth, like soup, travel through her torso, as the thought dawned upon her. "We can be together forever now!"
"Not yet, my sweet," Bernie smiled. "The world has some use for you yet." A fire truck, then an ambulance, pulled up behind him on the screen, their twirling lights sweeping across his face, across the snow. Through the window, the falling flakes looked party-colored, like confetti. The sirens rattled the panes of glass.
"But Bernie..." Ida wanted to protest. She wanted to jump out of bed, run out the door in her nightgown, throw her arms around him, breathe in his wintergreen smell, but she couldn't move. His image slowly began to shimmer and dissolve. "Bernie!"
"My love." Bernie put his disappearing hand to his heart. The screen went black.
Ida wanted to cry,
but the tears seemed to be frozen inside her, hard little ice chips,
like diamonds. She could hear men yelling outside, she could hear them
crashing through the front door. She closed her eyes and tried to drift
away, but she knew-Feh! Just her luck!-she knew they would find a way
to save her.
What
Gayle won:
$250 Cash Prize
Publication of winning story on the WritersWeekly.com website
1 - Freelance Income Kit Includes:
-- 1-year subscription to the Write Markets Report
-- How to Write, Publish and $ell Ebooks
-- How to Publish a Profitable Emag
-- How to Be a Syndicated Newspaper Columnist Special (includes the
book; database of 6000+ newspapers; and database of 100+ syndicates)
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24-HOUR SHORT STORY CONTEST HERE!