Snowflakes

My prompt: Your story is about a nurse in Chicago folding clothes. Please, any comments will be helpful!

"Snowflakes"

This city is the Windy City and I will never get the hang of it.

Here I am folding up a pair of jeans, and I can see out the window how the storm makes us soft. Makes us fat and lazy. The big, puffy jackets come out and the fur hats, and we trample down the big, puffy sidewalks. The wind sucks our curses right out of our mouths, and us, so soft, we let it take them.

It takes them to the tree tops. It takes them to the gutters. It recycles them into shattering icicles and the slush under car wheels. It takes them till, once again, they’re up in the atmosphere, crystallizing among clouds. Curses, billions of them. Soft, half-hearted curses of another heavy winter.

They come down inside snowflakes: we feel them and hear them and we curse them. We whistle. We breathe. We spit ice and rub our bright red thighs. I’m watching it out the window right now. A raging storm, soft as whispers.

This city is the Windy City and I will never get the hang of it.

At the hospital Matthew tells me to just give it time. That the cold’s not so bad if you’ve got the equipment. I smile at him, ‘cause he loves my smile. But this is what I know: the cold’s not so bad if you’ve got the stamina, if you’ve got the energy. And it’s such a shame. It’s such a tired, dull shame. I haven’t got that at all.

I fold the jeans so slowly. I haven’t got that at all.

I love Matthew’s smile, too. He’s got two, deep dimples and he’s got warm, tan skin. He’s from somewhere tropical, I can tell. I don’t ask him, because I need him to be. And when I kiss him next to the sugar bowl in the nurse’s kitchen, when nobody else is around, I feel warm as hell. The kettle goes off, jiggling and bubbling by my elbow, singing with steam. I make Matthew a cup of tea and I make myself one. Then we sit at the fold-out table when nobody else is around and we laugh into our styrofoam cups, and anyway me, my-- my lungs catch with the thick feeling of something I don’t know how to talk about.

The walk home, though, takes it all away. I’ve got two hoods and a scarf, but my scalp still cracks. I’ve got checkered snow boots, but the snow still sneaks in. I’ve got all the equipment, Matthew, I’ve got it all. I’ve got everything I need, the stupid fur-lined gloves and the knee-length coat. It’s on my walk home I want to ask him. I want to ask, What’s wrong, Matthew? I’ve got it all. But still, I feel soft and lazy. I feel fat. And by the time I stumble home all I want to do is stare at the computer screen.

I waste so many hours in front of the computer screen. It stains my face white.

Last night Matthew called me and before I knew it I was crying. He was going to ask me to go to the movies, but instead we just went to a diner down the block from my apartment. We got sandwiches, then coffee, and we stayed there till it was very late. My lungs could have overflowed. My lungs could have choked me to death. We stayed there till it was very late and now it is dim, early morning and he is asleep in my bed.

Out the window, the storm comes down, soft and gentle as whispers. Every curse I let slip, breathed out, sucked in, released. Every reproach and hatred. Every bad thought and dark fear. The wind strips it from me, takes it from me, gathers it up, and pours it down on me. The city is clogged with my nightmares, Matthew fast asleep. Matthew fast asleep in my bed. I fold up the blue jeans. I fold up the t-shirts and the sweaters. I fold them all up and I put them in the suitcase.