My second day of work brought the last snowfall of the season, but it didn't stay for long. I'd awakened a couple times in the night to hear it arriving, winds picking up outside as they tapped at the walls of my tent. At seven o'clock when my alarm chimed me awake, I broke out of sleep with a shiver as the air was a bit more harsh and chilly than it had been last night, though I couldn't figure out why. That is, until I drew back the flap of my tent to get to breakfast to find a thin layer of glistening snow across the ground and decorating the tops of the tents.
The second day was very similar to the first. The snow on the ground, however, was already melting away into the moist ground by the time I set off on my way to work. The sun peeked out from behind the heavy clouds and the air was already slowly growing warmer than it was when I had first dragged myself out of my sleeping bag. I greeted Tom, received instructions to arrange the display, and began my work without complaint. The snow was gone by two in the afternoon and never came again.
The days rolled by. February inched closer to its end. Some days I broke free from sleep before my alarm went off and others I found myself scrambling to prepare, but one thing I began to take notice of over time was that the reluctance to get up rather than surrender to the overwhelming urge to fall back asleep gradually receded. I learned to face the day as it awoke with me and begin my morning consistently on time. I rose with the sun and caught myself in routine. I really was getting used to it as I predicted.
The harshness of February's icy air finally began to let up as the month crept on. Clouds concealed the sun most days, though piling up every one of my belongings in my tent at night onto my sleeping bag just to contain warmth was something that became less and less of a need towards the beginning of March. The faces of my neighbors grew more and more familiar, some of which I even managed to match to names, but I didn't have the time to engage in friendship. Nowadays, the closest thing I had to a friend was Tom, though he was my boss, and I refused to let myself think about my loneliness long enough to get to my head.
The resurfacing of warmer temperatures turned snowfall into rainfall, and often at that. In some ways, I considered it a good thing. There was nothing in this world that more easily lulled me to sleep than the little raindrops leaving a rhythmic pitter-patter on the walls of my tent as I lay in my sleeping bag. The damp, pure scent sitting in the air in the daybreak after a night of rain smoothed out every inch of tension within me. But then, there were the days when it would pour relentlessly down as I hustled to and from work, holding my plastic bag above my head and stumbling through the furious winds until I could shut myself into the shop and take a breath of relief to be dry.
An umbrella certainly would have been useful in this weather, but I didn't have the money for such a luxury yet. It wasn't that I wasn't being paid, not at all. Tom paid me regularly for my services from a bag of Bells that contained his savings and never missed a payday. Even with a budget system in place, what I had was never enough to scrape together and buy the essentials, not to mention the look of concern sneaking over Tom's face as he peered into the bag to offer me my pay. We did what we could, but I could see the truth plastered on his face—One of these days, it wouldn't be enough.
The gloomy weather became a symbol for the month of March, leaving me with more nights than I could count huddled in whatever warmth I could keep in the sleeping bag and begging myself to sleep the bone-deep chills off somehow. I supposed that was one of the reasons I was drawn to comfort in the shop. Not only was it the best place I could access in sustaining warmth throughout the day, but being beside someone that I knew seemed to warm me as well. More of a reason to stay. Once, the winds had built up such force that it flipped over a tent with a sleeping animal still inside, leaving a very shaken and fidgety bird standing beside her busted tent as the managers tried to figure out how to go about fixing it. I decided after the fact to grab as much money as I could carry and buy myself a windbreaker coat if the situation was that intense.
YOU ARE READING
Counting the Stars
AdventureA few months fresh out of university at seventeen, Isabelle finds her world turned upside down on her when her twin brother, whom she has called her best friend for the entirety of her life, is torn away from her as he accepts a job offer as an inte...
