Creative Submissions

this winter comes in stages

by Trinity Fritz Lawrence

Muffled by cornfields, blanketed by a snowy October sky, Jack Harper’s little yellow house appeared stuck onto the landscape. 

Jack Harper was a rough man, in a nose hair and worn out boots kind of way, though he had the carefullest hands. Like so many old men, he woke up every morning at five, and sat on the porch with his old, all-American yellow lab, Charlie. They read books together, drinking coffee, and getting toast crumbs on their cheeks; they were a happy pair.

Many years before, Jack had started building dollhouses, the most delicate, detailed dollhouses–complete with little painted dishes and rugs–but never any doll people. He had never been to Chicago, never seen the Thorne rooms, but as he told Charlie, “They’re real so long as they can be. Adding dolls just makes them dollhouses.”

Charlie always listened to Jack, dozing beneath a table while Jack spoke to him, fastening little curtains into little parlors. Charlie loved to hear Jack talk, though he never had much to say back.

There was one thing about these dollhouses, however. They were all the same. Every year he started a new one, not on New Years, but the day after. Charlie did not know why, Jack never gave him an explanation. His workroom was lined with rows and rows of neat little cottages, all the same, except for the amount of dust sprinkled on the rooftops.

***

One morning, instead of a book, Jack brought a shoebox out onto the porch when he went to watch the sunrise with Charlie. It was a wistful sort of morning, the purple on the horizon spoke of gloom, not hopefulness. Charlie felt it, the way he always felt it come. It wasn’t always in October, but there was always a point in the fall, when the sun took a little longer to rise, and Jack became a little dimmer, a feeling of heavy desperation which came over the plains as all the life froze, and all the birds flew off except the gloaming crows.

This was the morning that the winter sunk into Jack. This was the morning that the box was brought out. Jack pulled out a small cotton handkerchief, and let Charlie sniff it: dusty carpet and overripe mangoes. He told Charlie, “I used to wear it in my pocket, so I could keep her with me.” 

Then Jack was quiet for a long time, looking over the lifeless field towards the place the sun would rise. Then he finished his mug of coffee in one sip, and went inside. Charlie followed him, and took his place beneath the dollhouse table.

That snowy October day, Jack was painting the trim onto a kitchen inside the latest dollhouse. This little cottage’s wood was all unfinished, and he was just starting to add windows and trimmings to the rooms. Charlie slept, Jack hummed a little and both were content, though Jack carried a sort of sadness in between his shoulders.

***

         Jack was walking across the field. It was summer, and the sun was warm, and Jack felt it go all the way through him, as it had not for many years. He was holding a single flower, holding it gently, shielding it from the wind. He knew he was going to give it to her, if he could just get to her fast enough, before she went away. Suddenly he felt the wind pick up, but instead of the sun-warmed breeze it had been before, he felt an icy nip of winter chill on his skin. He looked to the flower, and saw a deathwhite hand reaching for it. The hand plucked off a single petal, then vanished. As he watched, the petals started to fall off the flower, first slowly, then more and more. He started to run, trying to reach her, but soon all he was holding was a stem, and he knew he had missed her.

***

Jack held the piece of paper down to Charlie’s nose, so he could see the little sketch on the back. It was a peculiar little thing, two figures floating in space, faceless and naked, sprawled across each other and tangled up in fabric. Jack pointed to a squiggle in the corner, “Her initials, Charlie.”

Charlie didn’t know what to make of it–he thought the figures looked terribly lonely–but Jack seemed to understand. Jack went inside and Charlie followed. 

The little dollhouse was almost finished. The bedroom was all furnished, down to the tucked-in sheets on the four poster bed. The exterior was an earthy yellow, and the windows were all curtained. Just the powder-blue kitchen remained unfinished, and that day Jack arranged little dishes into all the cupboards. Finally, he smoothed the little tablecloth, took a step back, and said, “It’s just about done.”

***

Jack walked between the aisles of books. The paper-wrapped package he carried was rough between his fingers. As he passed them, the books began to tumble off their shelves, and Jack wondered would the aisles ever end. He stopped to pick one up, and his package was eaten up in the mass of hardcover spines and gilt corners. Jack chased it, shoving the books aside, but the pile just kept growing. His face fell right into one of the books and realized there were no words, simply pages and pages of empty white space. Books poured onto him. Jack looked up and realized there was no more light; the wordless books had consumed him.

***

It was finished the next day. Jack seemed happy, but Charlie was concerned. Jack had finished early this year, and something about it was not right. Each room was perfect, identical to all the other dollhouses, smelling of fresh paint. There were two chairs on the porch in back of the dollhouse. Charlie put his paws up on that table and looked at them. One was a weathered kitchen chair, which once must've been brown, but now was faded from many years outside. The other was a little pink armchair, with an instrument leaning against it. The upholstery seemed out of place, so exposed to the elements of the little doll world. Then Charlie realized it. The dollhouse was a miniature of Jack’s house, every feature the same except this little armchair. He looked down the rows and rows of houses and saw that they were all the same, all perfect renditions of this place that he called home. Last year’s dollhouse had a little bottle of perfume on the bedside table, the next had framed sketches covering its walls. They all had the two little chairs in back.

Charlie felt something was wrong.

***

         Jack sat out on the porch. It was snowing, and there was no moon. He stared out across the field, wondering what it was that was missing. A woman stood in the field. Her dress was like frozen grass, she shifted in and out of sight, blending in with the falling snow. She called to Jack, to follow her. He stood up, stepped off the porch and walked through the snow-covered field towards her. He looked at her and she held out her hands. Her hands were empty, white as paper, white as death.

***

         There is always a first night of winter. Sometimes it’s in September, sometimes it doesn’t come until Christmas. But the first night of winter always comes, cutting colder than autumn nights, with a flurry of snow maybe. If you’re outside, you can feel spirits in the wind. In Jack’s town, it usually happens a week before Thanksgiving.

But the first night of winter came early that year. Charlie felt it first, knew it was coming because something in the air had told him, or maybe dogs just know these things. It woke Jack up. It was the sort of waking up which has no interim between asleep and awake, which in fact possesses a special kind of clarity not often found.

 Wind blew through the bedroom. Charlie lifted his head to find the room dark and empty. That night, there was no moon. Charlie stretched out his legs to find the rest of the bed empty. He got up to look for Jack, and found the porch door blowing open, shoved aside by thousands of little snowflakes. There was a blizzard coming inside. He went out onto the porch. Jack was not there. He began to bark, and ran through the house, for something was horribly wrong and he knew he needed to find Jack. The house was empty, dark and cold. Charlie ran into the vacant dollhouse room. He saw the rows and rows of dollhouses all perfect in the dark. Except the newest one was different. The newest one was splintered, pieces of walls and furniture broken and scattered across the floor. Charlie saw the little instrument, snapped in half by the blows of Jack’s hammer.

He ran out onto the porch again, threw back his head, and began to howl.

***

After a while, Charlie opened his eyes. The wind had stopped, and the moon glowed across the field again. He saw a figure, walking out across the field. Jack. Charlie barked, but Jack did not seem to hear him. He was following something that Charlie couldn’t quite make out, a sparkling shadow, which flickered in and out of sight. 

         Charlie went back inside, he knew this was not his journey to take. 

***

Jack had changed. Charlie felt it, though he didn’t know quite what it was. After that night, it wasn’t just his shoulders that carried the sadness: it seemed housed in his every joint. Sometimes he would wake up to find Jack already out on the porch, staring out across the field as snow fell down upon it. It was winter now, truly. It never really got dark, the moonlight reflecting off the field of snow made it almost possible to see Jack’s face clearly. Charlie would wake up, walk out onto the porch and watch Jack stare into the field. He would notice Jack’s cheeks, shining with the light of the moon just like the snow, covered in frozen tears. Charlie would sit by Jack, shivering, wishing things would go back to the way they were.

***

Jack’s feet found his worn out slippers, and he walked out of his bedroom. This upended Charlie, who had been sleeping on Jack’s feet, and he figured that since he was already up, he might as well follow Jack and see what he was up to.

The box of objects sat on the counter of the powder blue kitchen, and Jack picked them up and went out into the porch. The wind was blowing across the dead field, haughty after being allowed to blow so far unhalted, and ripping around the house, its first obstacle, as if the change in direction had inspired some sort of strange ritual. Jack stood, facing the wild wind in worn out slippers and grey boxer shorts. He opened the box of memories, and Charlie watched him from behind the screen door as he carefully took the handkerchief out of the box, offered it to the wind, and let it be torn out of his hands. 

Next, the sketch joined the spirits in the air, spinning around the house and flying out, out into the dark winter’s night. Then a brown-paper-wrapped book, page by page. When the box was empty, the wind seemed to pick up speed and dashed around the eaves of the little house faster and faster, until suddenly, the wuthering stilled and the leaves fell silent.

Jack turned around, patted Charlie on the head, and went right back to bed. 

The next morning, Charlie noticed a miniature shoebox on the lopsided counter of the ruined dollhouse.

diary entries

by Decha Larson

my jealousy is reserved for my diary

because she's the only one who knows you like i do

i bet the stars too are in love with you

the secrets i share with the night sky

the way i waited so long

to come home to your heart,

the kisses we steal in the dark of the night

the mornings covered in dew

promises of leaving you,

how i love everything there is to know about you

sleeping all night without a dream

because i’m living out my wildest,

to feel you around me as i wake

is to come up for air in a life of stormy seas

how can i ever catch a rest on a cold mattress again

an open space, or a valley of death when you’re away

the way you make museums full with your masterpiece smile

‘Angelo could not have done it better,

drunk off your kisses

the waves of your hands give me motion sickness,

trying to get back to reality

has become a hell of a hike.