I just finished putting in a few hours overtime. As I walk out the door I'm delighted to see large brilliant flakes floating down like creamy stars from above. I can't resist sticking out my tongue to catch one. It tastes cold and almost sweet reminding me of a Peppermint Patty. The gathering flakes surrounding me cover the sidewalks and shrubbery. All around the city everything looks gentle and pure. I think to myself that it is late enough that there will be very little traffic from Queens, New York to my home in Long Island. I brush the fluffy white crystals off my windshield and doors and start my trek home down Queens Boulevard. 1
As I’m driving the snow starts to come down faster and harder. At times the frosty congelation changes direction forced by the winds. It is strobing against my windshield and I feel like it is trying to hypnotize me. Just for a moment, I glance away from the road and then feel the car slide. I regain control gripping the steering wheel tighter. I sit up becoming more alert. The windshield wipers won’t keep up with the demanding bullets of white that keep accumulating. I continue trying to drive as the cunning snow plays it’s wintery game with me and covers the road completely. Now I’m not sure where the lines in the road are. I try to see ahead, but there are no taillights to follow. An alabaster sheet of white has replaced evidence of any previous travelers on the highway. 2
The car swerves several more times before I finally became stuck in the treacherous accumulation. I have Howard Stern on the radio. I listen as he tells anyone who is on the road to stay in his or her car and to put something on the antennae. He assures me a rescue team will come by and take me to a motel. I have to laugh when he calls his mother and tries to make her feel guilty for not bringing him a sandwich over to the radio station during the blizzard.3
In a short time a deep blanket of snow covers the car enveloping me in the dark, except for the glow of the dashboard. I look at the gas gauge. It reads close to E. I start hoping and praying that someone will come by soon. Every so often I get out of the car so I can see out the window. Within a few hours I run out of gas.4
My feet are beginning to freeze and I wrap them in empty plastic bags. I have decided that the white frozen crystals have become my adversary. I stomp my feet and rub my hands to keep warm. I turn on the radio for a minute. The weather reporter is telling me that a slow moving storm that intensified off the South Carolina coast is upon us. By dawn no one has come to me rescue. I get out of the car and start walking against the unrelenting snow and sleet. After a short while a skier comes up and tells me to turn back. He says that the snow is deeper in the direction I’m going. I shake my head and keep trudging gritting my teeth against the bitter cold. There is nothing to turn back too. I must forge ahead. I must get home to my family.5
After passing the skier, I keep plodding through snow that is up to my knees. My feet hurt and my face feels frozen. Each step is a challenge and a victory as I put one leg in front of the other. I hear the rumble of an engine behind me. I stop and turn. I see a giant snowplow. I feel a little relieved. Once he pushes the snow pass me I'll be able to walk a little easier. To my surprise he stops and asks if I want a ride up to the industrial park he was going to plow. With a smile that cracks my chapped lips I climb up the ladder. The big yellow contraption fels like a lifeboat to me. The plow drives me a few more miles closer to home. When we get to the entrance of the park he yells over the rumbling engine.6
"This was where your ride stops".7
I jump off the top rung of the ladder and land in a drift of snow that is up to my neck. I can see he is smiling as he drives away. I guess he isn't into that lady in distress stuff. I punch and kick my way through the drift grateful to be in snow only up to my knees again.8
I keep walking and trudging for a few more hours. I'm feeling hungry, thirsty and tired. I have conversations with God and myself, not getting much of a reply from either. My mood lightens when I come up to a part of the road that has been plowed. Even though I am still walking in blinding swarms of snow, it all seems easier now. I hear another engine behind me. This time it is a police car. I stop walking and stand waving my hands. Without waiting for an invitation I grab the handle of his car door. Getting in I tell him about my overnight ordeal. I want to cry with relief and cry because my thawing feet are burning so bad. But I don't do that. I tell myself to wait until I get home.9
The things that happened next still have me confused to this day. The officer said he would take me home, but that he needed to go to the garage and take the chains off his tires. Having no other options I nodded. I sat and waited, keeping a keen eye on my only way home. He kept his word, but when we reached the ramp to Merrick Road he said he couldn’t get up it because he didn’t have the chains on his tires! I thanked him for the ride and thought about chains and tires as I walked the half-mile to my house.10
When I walked the door I expected to be greeted by oh thank-God you’re ok. But instead, my husband who was in the Coast Guard at the time was away doing a four-day shift at the station. My seven-year-old daughter was watching cartoons and my mother was cooking dinner. My mother asked.” Did you pick up some milk?” Holding up the container she showed me we were getting low.11
“Ma I just battled my way through a blizzard. Didn’t you notice I was missing?”12
She paused in thought with the spaghetti sauce spoon in her hand.13
“Ohhh I thought you came home late last night after we went to bed and left early this morning to go to work” 14
She eyed the milk container again and looked at me.15
“No Mom I am not going out to get milk it will have to wait until tomorrow.”16
I took my numb body and my baffled brains to bed and slept until the next day.17
On February 12-13 1983 New York had a record snowfall of twenty-three inches.18
In a list
A contest entry
- 7 heavenly virtues by plurangel.
100 points, ended September 6, 2007, 6 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Success Stories by Migfin.
500 points, ended August 30, 2008, 13 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - ♥=Walk A Mile In Her Shoes=♥ by Dreams of Insanity.
650 points, ended July 7, 8 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 23 of 23
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This reads very much like a true story. The little details you provide are interesting, because it's those little things that you would remember, like what Howard Stern was talking about, and encountering a skier, the strange thing with the policeman getting the chains taken off, stuff like that, that makes the story real. I enjoyed this throughout, but especially the part near the end when her mother asks about the milk.
You could have given information, periodically, as to the passage of time, so that the reader has a better sense of just how long you were out in the storm. Also, I think this whole thing, walking all night in the snow, would be even more difficult than you describe it. It would be agonizing, terrorizing, and dispairing, almost beyond words.
It's true, as you show in the story, that plastic bags can really help to keep your feet from freezing. I live in New Hampshire and I don't even own a pair of boots. I just wear plastic grocery bags over my socks and put my sneakers on over them, and I can be out for hours without freezing my feet. If this is a true story and you really did put plastic bags on your feet, that might very well have saved your toes, even saved your life if your toes had frozen and you couldn't walk any more.
I'm glad you (or if it's fiction, the narator) finally made it home safe.
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This is a great piece of work here =]
I enjoyed the read.
Thanks for entering -
I didn't expect to laugh at the end of this, so I was surprised when I did. The way you built it up, it was like reading a thriller, I was convinced that you/the characer wasn't going to make it (that probably sounds strange if this is actually a story about you =P)
You kept the descriptions fresh, you didn't just repeat the word "snow", and all of the words you chose were great. The flow was good, you slowed it down at the trudging bits, and sped it up at the exciting bits, everything you want in a story =)
Thanks for entering!
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Okay...I it was an okay read, but I don't the characters much. After reading through it, I could not connect with the woman, which is something a reader should be able to do. She seemed to lack depth and insight, and I could feel whatever she was feeling. I liked your descriptions, but after reading it, I did not have much of a feel for the story. It just lacked that one thing that makes a story good. I do not know what it is, it is just automatic.
The story just kept on going, and did not dwindle at all. It was like trying to get a coin I dropped on the Autobahn. There was no time to just be the character.By the way, you were just telling me things. Okay, this happened, then that happened, then that happened, and so on.
There is, also, a tense shift between the first and second paragraphs that distracts me. You might want to read that.
There are countless grammar mistakes. I, usually, try to overlook these things, but you kept on doing it till I burst!
I am serious. Maybe you should try rewriting the story...without the grammar mistakes, various tense changes, and the annoying fast pace that does not let me think.
MagicMonster00M
characters: 1.
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Unbelieveble, I was expecting a story of a beautiful snowy day but the way you turned it into a sort of nightmare was amazing. I'm actually shivering. Well done.
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This was so entrancing, really heart felt and a good.... no great write. you have some serious power here, if writing was a super power you might just be the almighty Power holder!
Freedom.
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That was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!!!!!!! I really hope this is true because it's so powerful and the details were awesome. The beginning drew me in- I couldn't stop reading it!
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I really liked this piece. I really don't have any criticisms. And the ending was brilliant, no sympathy from the mother. Great write!
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I liked it; very adventurous. One thing though, you need to be careful of your wording. Like other people are saying, you changed the tenses in the first two paragraphs. Besides that, it was cool.
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As other people have pointed out, fix the tense in the first and second paragraphs., I usually advise new/unpublished authors to break their habit of writing in present tense because it's HARD to write correctly. You did a good job, but to write in first person requires an INTENSE way of wording. You have to make sure that NOTHING slips into past tense. The little word could slip the story into past tense.
Good work though. : ) -
Great job. So you still don't know why the policeman took off his snow chains. He sounds like an utter moron. And her mother seems just plain rude! You changed tenses from the first paragraph to the second one. Try to fix your s/p/g mistakes. Awesome work!
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It was okay. Reading through it, I felt like I couldn't connect with the woman--it was almost like she was two-dimensional and didn't have much depth. Your descriptions were nice, but I end the story feeling like I don't really know HER.
The story seemed to go from fact to fact and didn't leave room for any emotional or sympathetic pull. Writer Anton Chekhov said: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
I felt like this story told me things were happening--SHOW your reader instead.
Also, the tense shift between the first and second paragraphs...somehow an introduction and your actual launching into the story could be smoother. Maybe you could try re-writing the first paragraph in the tense of the second...
good job! -
Always Keep a Full Tank!
This is rather frustrating...but I am going to try again!
First, I wanted to complement you on making so many allusions to snow without using "THE WHITE STUFF!" (Although you did use "Blanketed" at one point!) So far as these northeast blizzards are concerned, "taint SNOW fun!" I was there! Back in 1983 I was broadcasting the news on Radio WCBS, and our news director, LEW ADLER posted a memo warning all concerned NOT to EVER use that cliche phrase: "THE WHITE STUFF!" on the air.
Anyway, what the heck took you "HOURS" from Manhattan to Queens? And, LP, make sure that next time you venture anywhere you make sure you've got at least half a tank full (of GAS!)Hours?
(I'm still working on why you thought, after reading MONKEY BUSINESS I'd appreciate this piece...but you did a nice job!) Glad you made it back! I have NO sympathy for your mother, though! My family would have had the cops out looking!
GA
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i think this could be drawn out a little, it seems too rushed to me, just jumping over the events. go deeper into it. how was the night, what did she see. what the the drivers have to say? it was well done though and it sounded good. i live in australia and have never seen snow, but it usually sounds lovely. this story dosent make it sound as good lol.
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I live in a country where it snows in winter, and this year it didn't snow much, so I felt even more excited reading the beginning of this, because even though, I have seen it snow before, many times, it would be as my first. And it made me excited to see that someone else also was. Very Well described. I love catching snowdrops on my tongue!! Your excitment was almost as if you were my age! I definately wasn't expecting it to be dangerous when that bit started.
One thing I didn't think was right, comparing bullets to snow drops in paragraph two. I think that would be more like hailstones... Unless you meant it in a "it was snowing so heavily it was dangerous" sort of way.
I like the way you expressed yourself overall.. I doubt you want me to carry on commenting on each little paragraph of the story.
Again, very well written!!!!
MAriabeginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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goodluck in my contest.
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Good times
Sounds like fun times. A good topic, too, since most people have some sort of crazy weather story to relate. I'm in Kansas, so most of mine are tornado things. Good times, good times.
One constructive criticism: The tense changed between past and present, sometimes from one sentence to the next. Example:
"After passing the skier, I keep plodding through snow that is up to my knees. My feet hurt and my face felt frozen."
First sentence is present tense ("Keep plodding") and the next is past tense ("felt frozen.") Something to watch out for.
But. Aside from that, it was a good afternoon read. -
Memorable!!
That was excellent.
It reminded me of the Blizzard of '77. It covered Buffalo, and buried the small town I lived in, in Canada. Some people died. I was the last car from work,allowed on the hiway that day and made it home, five hours later. Less than ten miles. Got stuck at the end of my street. Car was there for two more days. Buried.
Great story. Took me back. Snow storms are too few and far between. And, oh so much fun.
beginning: 4, language: 4, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 4, characters: 5.
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Me likes. You have an eye for the small touches that make a story worth reading. Small tweaks could make this story really great.
I had problems with your sentence structure throughout. Somee were awkward, some were weighed down with unnecessary words.
"An alabaster sheet of white has replaced evidence..." Imagine, "Alabaster sheets of white replace evidence..." Any writer (or reader) would be thrilled with that sentence. I wish you'd just put the date above the story as it would shorten and strengthen your very first sentence.
You drift (like snow) between 2nd and 1st person.
The ending was hilarious.
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Great story with terrific description. One odd thing seems to happen: You start the first paragraph in one tense and shifted for the rest of the story.
Oh, love the "flakes floated down like creamy stars!" Beautiful!
Nice ending with your expectations ending by finding your battle wasn't even appreciated. Instead you hadn't been missed, only needed to go to the store.
Nice writing and really good work.
Jim
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Hey that was funny, the way her mother reacted when she got home, even her daughter didnt miss her....
But all the description of the way she battled through snow was good. Good job! -
Hey that was funny, the way her mother reacted when she got home, even her daughter didnt miss her....
But all the description of the way she battled through snow was good. Good job!
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Huh, that was a pretty interesting story. Her mom was pretty funny, not even caring that she had just come out of a blizzard. I did notice one thing: the first paragraph is in past tense, but after that paragraph, you switch to present tense. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it was just something I noticed. Good job!
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