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I Don’t Sleep Well When It Snows

A Story About Snow

By L.E. HarrisonPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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I Don’t Sleep Well When It Snows

I don’t sleep well when it snows outside, or if they’re even calling for snow. I will force my dry and tired eyeballs to stay open until I at least see the very first flake fall to the ground. It’s like I need visual confirmation that my brain can start racing away. Then, after I’ve crept into my bed, and whilst rejoicing in the beautiful quiet the snow brings to the city, I get to reflect on all the memories I’ve had with snow.

My favorites include my brother Chris and I pressing our foreheads to the sliding glass doors that overlook our parents deck. We would be standing there, skin to glass, staring up at the flakes as they seemingly fell haphazardly towards our faces, causing us to screech and jump back like the flakes were going to grab onto our cheeks for dear life and come right through the glass. Those were the best times, my brother and I not even having to say anything to each other, just being there, quietly awaiting the fresh, soft, cold snow to get us inside our warm house.

Another time, my brother and I made an entire snowman army and placed them around the front and back door to our parent's in-laws' apartment. You see, our cousin was staying there at the time and declined to help us shovel the foot of snow we received. As such, the only logical thing to do was to blockade her doors with snowmen both big and small, making it impossible for her to get out without getting covered in snow. Sweet, sweet childhood revenge.

I remember the terrible times that snow brought, as well; the time where, once again, Chris and I were together, driving home from school. We hadn’t spoken in months, maybe even a year, at this point. We hated each other because we couldn’t see eye to eye on a dumb issue.

We hadn’t spoken in months, but as the blazer went down the road and the bad feeling in my gut began to pound in my head, I looked at my brother and very calmly asked him to put on his seat belt and, to my surprise, he did. About a mile down the road later, he lost control of the truck and we crossed the double yellow lines. As we slid across the road, I informed my brother we were about to get hit by a school bus. He shouted back that it would miss us.

As I looked out of my passenger window and saw the defects in the chrome grill from bugs hitting it over and over again throughout the years, I had one last thought before the crashing darkness took over: We didn’t make it.

Waking up in a hillside of snow with the seat belt that just saved my very life wrapped around my throat made me realize that it’s not always the accident that will kill you. It’s sometimes the aftermath, as well.

As my brother came to and saw my desperate struggle to unlatch the seat belt, he hit the release button and I fell face first, gasping, mouth open, right into the cold, icy snow that had almost killed us.

The shock of the cold on my face and in my mouth reminded me of our old snowball fights and that time we made tunnels in the snow after a blizzard. The glass impaled in my face and my broken ribs screaming at me reminded me that this wasn’t some game and we weren’t winning anyway.

The snow crunched under the sound of a bus full of children leaning precariously to the side opposite the hill it lodged itself into after striking us.

As I sat in the truck that resembled a can of sardines that had just been opened, my feet dangling above the snow peppered with road debris and some sort of liquid dripping from the truck, it occurred to me that snow would never be the same. I would never be the same. If I lived.

Strapped down to a back board in an ambulance, I came to the total belief that I was, in fact, dying. My face was bleeding, I could barely breathe, and even though it was a chilly seventeen degrees out and all my clothes had been cut off of me, I felt like my body was burning to ashes.

Road rash.

I have no idea where it came from, but my hips, lower legs, and thighs were covered in it. My broken ribs made breathing an act of pure torture. But the snow. The snow was so beautiful. The field we crashed in was an untouched paradise of the white icy particles.

Now, when it snows, I sit inside my house and watch it fall. I remember the fun times and the traumatic one. I remember the feeling of my cheeks being so cold they were numb and that part of your wrist where your gloves don’t quite reach your sleeve so it always gets slightly damp.

I remember the smell of the motor fluids and the crunching of the glass under my hands. I remember asking the EMT to make sure someone took care of my cat. She was an old, feral mama cat who showed up with a litter of kittens and then decided to stay. She wasn’t a cuddly cat. She was feral, fractious, and fast, but I loved her and she put dead bunnies under my bed, so I know she loved me back.

The snow is falling faster and with each flake I remember something new; making the sickest sledding course in someone’s front yard who we didn’t know, but we lived out in the country and there was no place else for the good sledding—the kind of sledding where the hill doesn’t end, it just goes into a thick forest of trees and that’s how you stopped your sled.

I remember the salt truck driving by while I was being strapped to a back board and watching my brother cuss out the driver for not salting the roads before school got out.

I remember the tunnels we made and how they were actually in the road, but our country road would get wicked snow drifts and it would take the county several days to come get us out.

I remember getting the X-rays done in the hospital and having to sit so very still so the nurse could pluck the glass out of my ear canal. I still have some of the pieces saved.

I remember when we got a surprise snowstorm and my friends got snowed in at my house for two days.

I remember by mother breaking down and crying when she saw the remains of the truck when the tow company brought it back to my parents' house. I remember her saying over and over: “I didn’t know it was that bad. I didn’t know.”

I remember when my dad got the snow blower and we all fought on who could use it first, and then it didn’t snow that entire winter.

So many memories wrapped around tiny little flakes.

No wonder I can’t sleep when it snows. I’m too busy remembering my old life. The time when snow was fun and then it wasn’t anymore.

That shift from childhood excitement for a day off school and the sudden realization that you’re not immortal and bad things can happen fast.

I don’t sleep well when it snows. I want so badly to love it, but so quickly I remember the pain and the terror.

I don’t sleep well when it snows. Just like the quiet of the city, I go quiet inside and wait to see what happens next. I want to relax, but there’s this voice in the back of my head telling me to watch the snow. To make sure the snow doesn’t grab me by the cheeks and pull me through the glass. Again.

immediate family
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About the Creator

L.E. Harrison

Complicated thoughts from a simple mind.

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