I Stuck pretty close to the Gildner model here. But it’s odd how different this story turned out. Still searching for an ending. Thanks in advance for reading. This is hot of the presses, written in 45 minutes. Busy weekend. I will read others later tonight of early tomorrow. Thanks!
When she returned from the mall, she plunged her hands into a sink of soapy water, rinsed and wiped them dry. From the pile on the kitchen floor, she dropped in her blouse, bras, skirt and panties, making the sure the water she ran was cold. Once they were clean, she threw them all into the washing machine. After that, she stayed home from work and watched “Emily in Paris” episodes over and over again.
One day her husband asked her when she planned to return to work. She didn’t answer but instead set about cleaning. She threw out all the soiled white shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets and drawers and lay down new. She emptied all the food from the refrigerator, even the produce drawers, and soaped and dried each so the entire thing was sparkling white. She scrubbed the bathroom floor with bleach, along with the bathtub, cleaning all the grey grout with a toothbrush. Next, she took all the clothes from her closet, packed them into her car and dropped them off to be given away by Good Will. The next day, at a row of small boutique shops, she purchased five work new outfits, a black date-night dress, a subzero parka and thermal pants, hat and socks, two pairs of jeans, two sweaters, and four turtlenecks. While she selected her socks and mittens, the salesman regaled her with stories of wipeouts and white outs while skiing a few hours north in the Canadian Rockies.
The next day, she got into her car, packed her subzero clothing and weekend wear, leaving her work clothes behind in her closet, the tags still on them. She drove 20 hours straight to Anchorage Alaska. There she found a B and B on the edge of a small outskirt town and stayed in a cottage with a space heater and decent food in the main dining room.
She remained inside for two weeks watching old black and white movies, except war films and westerns. Each day, she checked the internet for when the northern lights would appear. Ten days into it, it snowed six feet and the pathway to and from her cottage to the dining room, once cleared, was now bound by high walls of snow. Most nights, she couldn’t sleep and would pull on her parka and snow boots and walk along the walkway, staring at the mink black sky, the million pinpoints of light from the multitude of stars that shined there. The moon waxed and waned. Still, she rose and saw nothing.
One night she was awoken by the sound of wolves howling. It was a terrible sound. She went out into the night air and there she saw the purple and green dance across the heavens. She stared and stared in wonderment. She stared and stared, despite fatigue weighing down her eyes, her body wanting to curl up under blankets. She just couldn’t leave the light show in the sky. She dropped back on her back into the snow, felt herself sink as if in a bed of feathers, and watched the purples and greens noticing that how there wasn’t one speck of red anywhere. She lay there under the sky, watching, hearing the wolves howl as they neared, their howls closing in, breaking her silence.