Three Minutes Flat

When I wake up, I am alone. There is no warmth on the other side of the bed, no crumpled blankets holding the shape of another body—just me. 

Everything is still. These four walls are my solitude, my protection, my refuge. My everything. 

I hold myself inside them, counting breaths, counting heartbeats, choosing to keep living. Beyond the walls, death moves through the wind and sleet. The water has turned black. The sun has turned to smoke. 

These four walls keep me alive. 

They are also my cage. 

Some days, I find loneliness. On other days, I find my recluse easier than any other alternative. Death will come for me. I am as sure of that as the hunger in my stomach. 

So, I wait. I wait for the cold to seep through the walls, for my food to run empty, and for my pipes to dry. 

I have been alone with these walls for three years. Three years of decisions, made privately with the knowledge of death waiting at the door. As soon as I open that door, it will come for me, probably in only three minutes flat.  

Every morning, I follow the same routines. They are habits. They are obsessions. 

First, I check the thermostat. If, by some miracle, it is working, I could skip the next step, but it never is. I peel back the tape and layers on the living room window to check the thermometer. Below zero. Always. 

I reseal the tape. Then the plastic. Then the blankets. I press along the edges to test the adhesive and move from window to window. There are six. 

The living room is the most secure because it is where I live now. Plastic, sheets, fleece. The same layers cover the front door, nailed into the frame. My bedroom window is nailed shut, too, with my dresser shoved against it. 

The other bedrooms get one blanket each. I keep their doors closed. When I open them, it isn’t just the cold that rushes out; it’s memory. 

After the windows, I check my food. I choose one thing and make it last all day. 

My mother left the safety of these walls, never to return, and so did my father and my brother. Everyone. I was told not to follow. I was asked to wait. So, I wait for the next day. And then the next. I wait for the next nap, the next meal, the next blizzard. I wait for a new idea, a new remembrance of life. 

I worry about ice from the windows seeping into the frame. I try to lock out the slight breeze, but on days like today, I can’t help but notice the cotton's slight flutter. 

It is days like today that scare me the most. The day's frostbite would penetrate my limbs after three minutes flat and ruin all my chances toward a future. 

My mother left on a day like today. She piled on three coats and covered every inch of her body, swearing it would be enough. I cried and begged her not to go. Three minutes flat, I told her, was all it would take. 

I couldn’t even watch out the windows as she raced away, searching for a plane that soared in the sky. It may have landed nearby, she had said. Maybe. 

My back rested against the door’s wood, frozen by the crack opened to let her out. I listened to the crunch of her footsteps in the snow and the wind howling laughs at me between each step. 

I lasted two days before I nailed the blanket back over the door, shaking at the thought of her frozen body covered in snow. I begged the stars she made it past three. How many steps could a person take in three minutes flat? 

I have read every book in this house a dozen times. I have written novels across the walls and stared at my face in the mirror long enough to forget I was real. I have counted and recounted so many canned vegetables that now I think in numbers. 

I get up with the sun and hide with the moon. I let the darkness consume my home and listen to the wind’s howls. My heart beats endlessly, over and over again. 

But tomorrow is coming. My waiting stops tomorrow, and I face my most prominent fear. One way or another, I have waited long enough. Death is knocking at my door. 

I don’t have enough food. Each day, I save just enough to make it until tomorrow, which has finally come. 

I put on every article of clothing I own. The layers are so thick I can barely walk. I strip the blankets from my bed and wrap them around myself like a hanging cloak. 

I reach for the doorknob. 

I can’t turn it. 

I crumble. I hit the floor like a dead beetle and cry, not because I am cold, but because I am too afraid to open a door. Would I rather wither here? By myself? Alone? 

My brother’s name throbs in my chest.  Just before Mom left, he went with Dad to look for help. They promised they would come back. He made me promise I would wait. 

So I did. 

I don’t know how long I stay on the floor. Curled in on myself. Counting regrets instead of seconds. Sorry, I can’t go outside. Sorry, I didn’t ration better. Sorry, I couldn’t make Mom stay. 

When I finally crawl to my room and collapse onto the mattress, I know what I’m missing. Not courage. Motivation. 

I can’t help wondering if it will ever stop. Will the snow ever melt?  

And when it happens, will I still be here? Or outside these walls, frozen like my mother? Where would I rather be? Because, truthfully, both options end up with me dead. And alone. 

Hours pass before I crawl back to the door. More pass before I open it. 

I don’t leave. 

The air is too still. 

I take one step. Then another. My feet don’t crunch as they do in my memories. They slide. The ice drops me to my knees. When I try to stand, my hands slip. My feet slip. I shove my weight forward until I’m upright again. 

Two more steps. 

I fall. 

Then the wind hits my face. Blistering needles tear across my cheeks, sharp enough to steal my breath. I pull air in and forget how to let it out. 

That’s all it takes. Two falls. One breath of cold. 

I crawl back inside. I slam the door and sink against it, shaking. 

Pain interrupts my failure. It twists inside my soul and purges its way into my chest. It builds a hole in my ribs and pulsates through my veins.  

There are times when keeping the pressure inside is too hard. Too fierce. So, when the tears drop freely, I let them fall one by one. 

Unable to stop myself, I crawl my way into Ryan’s room. I climb onto his perfectly made bed and push my face into his pillow. Musk and mint rush past my senses, threatening to stop my heart. 

It is the silence that is slowly driving me mad, a silence so still that it vibrates in the air like mosquitoes. I hum to drown out the noise, but my crying is too loud to make a difference. 

If I die, wouldn’t I rather it be quick? With the feel of the wind in my face and the sound of the wind crunching against the bare branches of the earth?  

I close my eyes each moment, wishing them never to open again. I blink with disappointment. I blink with memories I no longer want and fight away hunger pains that drop me to my knees.  

Just like when I was in the snow. 

I force myself up, and I dig through my brother’s closet. I throw t-shirts to the floor and drop baseball cards off the shelves. I push toy robots out of my way and climb to the top shelf. Pulling down his soccer cleats, I know they are the answer. 

Within minutes, I am back at the front door. I have swim goggles on my face, shielding my eyes from the wind. My face is covered in scarves, and my breath sticks with sweat in my mouth. I have blankets wrapped like capes around my neck. I have hope in my fingers and death at my toes. 

But I manage. The cleats stick to the ice-like nails. I make it to the end of the drive without tears running down my face or ice forming in my nose. I make it to the mailbox across the street and freeze. 

My mother had followed the plane east. She turned right down the street and walked out of sight. I turn left. 

 Snow covers everything, in my view. Buildings are mounds turned into hills.  

The ground is a lake of snow and ice. There are no footprints. No leaves are hanging from the branches of trees.  

There is simply nothing. 

I don’t know how long I walk. My bones ache, and my muscles are stiff. A kink in my neck makes me moan with each step I take. But the sun has set. And that sends a much worse fate for me than any of my aches and pains. The wind blows crisper at my sides, and the cold sinks deeper into my skin. 

I push through the preceding night only to find more darkness. Everything is black, barely illuminated by the distant moon. Or is it a light in the distance? It forces its way into my view with each beat of my heart. 

I stumble toward it as it snakes its way toward my chest. A chimney smoking with heat, a house attached to two perfect lightbulbs, revealing the warmth my soul aches for. 

I run. I run through the snow and the darkness, the cold and the whirling wind around me. I run through the hunger pains and the crunching snow beneath my feet. I run with all my might. 

I make it there in a mere three minutes flat.