Return

We drove and we drove and it snowed and it snowed and a three hour drive became five and a half, crawling and sliding through slippery roads and all of the time we kept going north.

It was the kind of day you turn up the heat if you have it, or stuff wood in the stove if you don't, and sometimes the fire gets too hot and burns down your house, and men in orange close down the road and wave batons and tell the cars how to go another way, and other men in orange pull out survivors, and there is the sound of sirens in the soft snow, and maybe you are listening or maybe you are falling up into the whiteness against the snow and the smoke which is finally heating your house and maybe you, too.

But then you exit the scene and the tragedy becomes part of your drama and finally the cloud curtain rises on the final act which always has to have a sunset and which usually involves coming home in one way or another.