Ice

[So that my Mom doesn't have a heart attack, I should preface this by saying that this is a work of fiction. It didn't really happen. At least not quite like I tell it below.]

It's starting to feel like winter. If you live within Chicago's city limits, you'll need a warm coat. In the suburbs, where one only needs to traverse the distance between the car and the shopping mall entrance, you might be able get by without one, albeit uncomfortably.



I bought my warm coat two winters ago. Thusly armed, I shook my fist at the winter sky and cried out: "Ha! Bring it on! The most frigid of arctic airmasses will have no effect on me!"

The following Sunday, on a cold and gloomy afternoon, I boldly set out for the lakefront to test the insulating properties of my new purchase. It had snowed earlier in the day and was still overcast. I set off about 3:30, later than I had hoped. I had scarcely an hour before dusk.

As I emerged from the Lake Shore Drive pedestrian underpass, I could see that on a day such as this, the lakefront was not a popular destination. I looked north from Foster Beach and could see only one other person, a photographer with his tripod. He was about a half mile distant, near the north end of the seawall.

I proceeded north until I reached the end of the seawall and then descended the steps to its edge. I looked down at the water where it lapped at the seawall six feet below me and was mesmerized.

The water was filled with small chunks of ice, and atop the ice were little heaps of fresh snow. As a wave began to lift the ice, the snow would darken as it filled with water like a sponge. The water was near freezing, so it did not melt the snow. Then, as the wave crested, the water would drain out, and the snow would take on a luminous blue color.

I stood there staring at this, motionless, unconcerned by the passage of time. When I looked up, it was definitely darker than before. I could see the photographer was now down by Foster Beach. I had been aware of a man and his dog passing by at one point, but they were nowhere to be seen now. I decided to head home.

One step, and the ground seemed to spin and rise up toward me very quickly. I found myself prostrate and sliding slowly but inexorably toward the edge of the seawall, at the mercy of my momentum and of gravity. I stopped just at the edge. It was quiet. The only sounds I could hear were of my breath against my scarf and the gentle splashing of the water against the seawall.

Very carefully, I crawled to safety on all fours. The snow had been pushed aside as I slid, and it revealed a sheet of glass-slick ice underneath. I had been standing on this ice the whole time and had been unaware of the danger.

In a city of three million, I had found myself alone, with no one to call to for help. I kept thinking about how things might have turned out, had I been a little less lucky. From my own point of view, the end would have come quickly. Beyond that, how long would it have been before I was missed? It was such a stupid thing; might people think I had done it intentionally?

Troubled by these thoughts, I began to shiver despite the warmth of my new coat. I made my way back to rejoin the living, stopping for coffee along the way.