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The Great Escape

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Great Escape

By Nandy Ekle

Sub zero temperatures, blowing winds with an edge as sharp as a knife, a little snow here and there. Winter has arrived a few days early and is twisting our lives with grueling intensity. My favorite radio station has two tickets to paradise, but you have to be the ninth caller to get in the drawing — and I’m always number 6.

However, there is a way to visit the tropics while Antarctica eats the siding off my house and tries to cut off our water supply. I can take a pencil and a piece of paper and describe my vision of the Hawaiian beach. I’ve seen the pictures of two palm trees connected by a hammock hanging in the middle between them.

I close my eyes and hear the water rush up the sand, then glide back to the depths. I smell the salt air, feel the slight breeze as the clouds float across the blue sky. Out in the distance I see an ocean liner on the horizon. Sea gulls gossip in the air, but there are no other sounds.

Looking at the line where the briny water has washed up on the beach I see a crab side stepping away from the water. Where is he headed? What is he after? Where did he come from?

I roll off my hammock and walk to the water. As it laps up on my feet and I feel the sand being sucked out from under my toes, I notice a tiny hole open up next to my heel. The hole covers as quickly as it opens, but bubbles rise to the surface and pop. I want to dig down in the hole and find what  made it, but a picture suddenly appears in my head of a sea monster waiting for some unsuspecting finger to plunge down. I go back to my hammock and lay down again.

My eyes close and even the calling of the birds disappears. The air turns cold once again and the biting wind picks back up. I have just arrived home from my trip.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

The Wind Howled

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Outtakes 36

The Wind Howled

My father spent time in Amarillo during his early military training. Learning he would again be stationed here did not rank high on his bases of choice list. He remembered the wind, the dust, the heat, and the bitter cold, and he was not anxious to brave the elements a second time. Everything I’d been told about Amarillo’s climate is true. It can be sunny and cloudless, and in a matter of hours, the temperature drops and a freezing rain falls.

Weather plays an important role in our lives. Folks spend their summers in the north but winter in Arizona or Florida. We plan vacation time around the seasons. For those of us in the Panhandle, commitments are often tempered with “weather permitting.” We use Daylight Savings Time to prolong warm, summer days so that we can enjoy the outdoors. Don’t you just love those fall foliage tours?

The weather has its place in our writing. “The sky wept as the mourners gathered around the grave,” enhances the somber setting. “Bright late spring sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows. The dance of colored lights clashed with hushed strains of the funeral dirge,” provides a contrast of the weather and the occasion. Howling winds often signal something frightening.  Falling snow contrasts the warmth of a house or the desperation of the poor.

Are you looking for an antagonist for your story? Try weather. Did you see the movie The Day After Tomorrow? Dennis Quaid played a researcher who predicted an ice age in the future. Unfortunately, the future was now. With little time to prepare, the inhabitants of the library struggled to survive the deadly cold.  As a writer, could you burn books to keep warm? Would you think to line your clothes with newspaper or pages from books to add insulation? Could you brave the elements to search a marooned ship for food and medicine? The non-human antagonist threw every imaginable curve at the survivors and I believed it.

A good writer uses every means at his disposal to craft the story. Since the weather is a primary topic of everyday conversation, why not employ it to enhance and define your story. Imagine the difference rain, snow, sleet, and the dead of night could make in your current work. Enjoy.

Cait Collins