The Night of Blue Snow

He drank while running his hand over the faux wooden handle of the pistol. It felt so smooth, not like wood at all, no jagged edges, no threat of splinters, no coarse surfaces. The tree behind him jabbed bark into his back through his sweater and jacket. He thought that an odd juxtaposition. But his thoughts faded, and his discomfort was enough to supply a gust of energy and he pushed himself onto his own feet and headed toward the gas station.

It was time.

The sky crackled, cutting the night with bursts of blue and red and yellow. That was strange. Night skies were black and sometimes gray or deep blue. This was... not that. Twisting coils of light flashed and then faded overhead, an impromptu Midwestern aurora borealis. Tufts of clouds became briefly luminescent and released a thin wave of snowflakes. He held out his gloved hand and caught one in his hand. It looked normal, he thought, before it became a patch of moisture on the leather.

The ground was already thickly coated, seven inches of lake effect with a top layer of crunchy ice. The high was seventeen, the low was 3 and with wind chil,l negative two. Droplets frozen before falling from branches. The roadways and curbs battered by mushy gray slush, a mixture of dirt and snow and whatever else. A wave of filth crashing over ramparts. The low-buzz of fluorescent lights overhead, pale gleaming trapped in the glint of ice.

A bottle of Four Roses and a crushed 40 both encased on the sidewalk. Melty semi-circles where the salt was dropped, frozen over when night came, too cold to be truly effective. Grease-stained fast food pouches caught between the drifts and the wind, part frozen, part free, fluttering helplessly. The squeegee brush was probably frozen too, he thought. The world was sloshy at the edges, like he was staring through a fishbowl, but at least his stomach burned hot.

He could do this, he knew that. He might need a second to collect himself, but that was OK, he thought.

The Speedway felt a million miles away, yet so near. Everything about the station was familiar, the salt-stained trash cans between pumps, the bag-wrapped handles indicating no fuel was available, the canopy speakers looping adult contemporary jazz. He leaned against one of the pillars and plucked a joint from his jacket. A sticker told him the pump had been certified by the county and another sticker, probably put there by teens in a band, said, “Maddening Crowd Rocks!”

The bottom sticker, the one touting a rock band, came with an illustration of a crowd at a show (probably the Maddening Crowd), but the music was so bombastic, so righteous, so goddamn rocking that some people’s heads were exploding. Joe tried to note the band’s name in his head, repeating it over and over again, knowing he would never remember it later. A band that could explode your head sounded promising though.

Smoke filled his lungs. The THC was great but he could feel the air sacs being burnt up and that gave him a rush too.

He blew a cloud of smoke toward the chipped paint of the canopy and saw another streak of light twisting like a helix. He examined the joint and then took another hit before carefully killing the flame and stashing the remaining weed in his jacket.

He could do this.

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About the Author

Chris Mosby is an author and journalist from Cleveland.

You can read more of his work at vocal.media/authors/cd-mosby.

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