Weekly Writing – December 17 2022

She ran when she could, like a dog in its traces. Pulling the cart on its wooden skis behind her for as long as her strength lasted, bursts of motivation and chilly white breath, until the snow rucked up ahead of her and she realized she was trudging again, blinking at a horizon the colour of milk in beer.
Lifting the stiff pistons her thighs seemed to have become. Blinking through the ice crystals that tried to glue her eyes shut. How much farther?
How much farther could it be? It still looked like forever. The sun was melting into the horizon, a bright wax ball on pale, flickering coals, trickling towards her along an endless road of ice across snow.
Her shoulders seemed as taut and brittle as the straps crossed over them. She might have been dying.
Everyone was, of course. All the time – that’s what he would have said. But she might have been doing it faster. The cart, wheels clamped into skis, warped and scarred with the miles and miles she had dragged it before the ice, was so heavy.
He would never say it again. Never say anything. The cart was so heavy, and he was silent, and she just kept pulling, running when she could, trudging when she just couldn’t stop.