Come Before Winter – Chapter Eight – Deep Pockets
December 8th, 2021
2 Timothy 4:21, “Do your utmost to come before winter.”
CHAPTER EIGHT – DEEP POCKETS
The bitter cold atmosphere heaved itself into the early morning and vomited over the horizon, clinging to pockets of air and dripping onto the foothills. Huge puffs of smoke from chimneys everywhere dotted the sleepy city as it seemed to have trouble waking up. Mercy did too, her heart strapped to a flatline and her mind too sluggish in the frigid air to make sense of much. She tried to move herself from the innards of a doorway where she had pressed herself all night, but she was either frozen there or her body too slouched and stiff to unfurl itself. Even a yawn couldn’t escape. She had barely slept until the cold had eaten its way through her, and then as if it slowed all her vitals down, she could hardly wake herself now. Maybe she was dying. Maybe she was dead, and hell looked and felt the same as earth, and that wouldn’t surprise her one bit. She reconciled she certainly wouldn’t find herself in heaven, nor her name in that BOOK OF LIFE she had once upon a long time ago dreamt about, since she’d never let all the wonder and questions fall out of her mouth with Patsy. The memory now was foggy, or maybe that was the bitterness of the morning; it seemed futile now, after everything.
Mercy tried her fingers and then her toes, and eventually they responded angerly and begrudgingly. They felt like they might break off, and the deliriousness of her situation caused her to giggle at the image. She rotated her wrists, springing forth from the confines of the blanket she had buried herself beneath; then she circled her ankles. The cardboard box she’d caught the night before in a wind storm had surely helped as she’d been able to fashion it into a wind block. The wind chill factor had to be significant, and if it weren’t for the fact that her body felt as if it might crack and that she had to pee, she would have stayed put. It was going to be a lot nastier as she climbed out of her doorway and into the gusts. There was always the peculiarity of this life, the girl had learned. You’d find a good doorway to call home, and you’d set up residency and begin thinking of it as your address, and someone would come along and steal it when you looked the other way. Or the real owners of the storefront would return, or the city would be making their rounds, and they’d boot you, send you packing, tacking up “NO TRESPASSING” signage immediately.
THIS was not what she had foreseen. First of all, Mercy hadn’t made this decision impulsively or taken the decision lightly. Shoving her hand deep inside her pocket, more for comfort than anything, she laced her fingers around the envelope. It felt like silken threads by now, so worn and enjoyed actually. She sighed as she looked up through the tall skyscrapers reaching towers toward heaven as if as needy as she was. They surrounded her, making her feel miniscule and insignificant.
Mercy had been here for almost four months now, and for the life of her, she wondered why and what she had been thinking. She’d searched everywhere she could for her dad, for her grampa, for some memory, something recognizable, some recollection that rocked her world…and nothing, a BIG FAT NOTHING. And in a city this size, was it any wonder? And she might just die due to it, due to the excavation of her past, the silent search for her family, the impending and inclement weather certainly not friendly or inviting in this vast city she knew nothing of any longer. Had she ever? She’d just been a child…what must she have been imagining, she questioned again for the zillionth time, her mind taut and her body frozen.
But. The flipside. The blindside. “Do your best, Mercy, to come before winter. I fear there’s not much time.” The words ominous, and surely by now, time had run out. But. What if it hadn’t? What if he was still waiting? What if they were, and maybe, just maybe, today would be the day! What if she rounded the corner on this street, and BINGO! there he was! Everyday, what if, it kept her going, searching, seeking, hoping. And yes, praying.
Psalm 139:7-12, “Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute—you’re already there waiting! Then I said to myself, ‘Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!’ It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you; Night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.” (MSG)
To Be Continued…
