Blizzard (Fantasy)

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Just yet another short story. I don't know if the tag of fantasy really fits, but it's the closest identifier I could figure to tag it with. Fiction might actually be the best since it really doesn't fit in any specific genre.

The snow was blinding. Nothing but pure white could be seen for miles, and the ability to see even a few inches in front of oneself was impossible, even at the gentlest of times during the blizzard. Even if the path was one well known by the one walking it, getting lost in this storm was inevitable. Voices from others who were out seemed more like those of ghosts, as the person speaking could actually be beside you yet due to the way the wind was carrying, would sound as if it were coming from a mile away. This didn’t bother Evie. She knew that if she found herself lost in this white-out, she’d still be fine. While the temperature was cold and visibility was nil, the loneliness that this storm created was one she lived with internally and had dealt with for many years. It wasn’t her wish to live this way, but instead it was what life had forced upon her.

Growing up had seen her moving from town to town, school to school, and friend to friend. Eventually, after enough moves, friends turned into acquaintances, and then nothing at all. She felt that she had given enough of herself to then have it ripped away each time she had to leave yet another friend. It hurt worse when those friends stopped writing after a while, due to being caught up in their own lives, so she stopped trying to keep in contact with them. Why continue trying to force something that it seemed they weren’t interested in having anymore? Why should she let their actions make her feel like the unwanted castaway that each day without a response to her letters caused? It came to a point where she decided she’d had enough and therefore the next move, the next school, she kept to herself. She saw no reason to try to make friends this time, believing that the minute she did, another issue would pop up and there would be another change in living arrangements taking her away from this new place before she had truly settled in.

It didn’t help that, while she knew her parents loved her, they also weren’t the most affectionate of beings. All too often, especially in her later years, she felt pulled between both entities. One would use her as a sounding board too many times for her comfort when it came to complaints about the other parent. The other seemed to find too many flaws when comparing her to others and then would flip to the other end of the spectrum and lavish praise. She saw her parents beginning to live further apart from each other, not in distance as they still shared the same living space, but in emotion and affection. Some seem to think that when a child of a union is young, that is when such actions within families can cause the most pain, but Evie could teach people otherwise. It hurts just as much as an adult as it does when a child. Seeing parents drifting apart is painful no matter what the age – if anything it can be worse as an adult because you see more and can comprehend more than a child, as children have only a narrow view of life and most of it circles around them and what they know of the world.
As an adult, these actions have shaped her into the person she is now. She believes that she is truly unable to get close to another human being due to those ingrained fears she had as a child, that those she came to care for and feel comfortable with will somehow disappear. She fears that she will truly be unable to find or feel love for another and that perhaps she is cold inside. Maybe this is why she is also unable to make those connections needed to feel like a whole person instead of one who is constantly on the outside looking in. She wonders if she is cold and unfeeling, even though there are times where she can feel great anger or even greater sorrow and is, at times, even able to shed tears. She fears to fail, like she has so many times, in the eyes of those who mean the most to her, and without knowing it is constantly seeking praise from them and from others to help validate what she has done and will do in the hopes that it will help her believe that she is finally on the right path. Even so, she looks around herself and sees what others have done with their lives, as well as how rich those lives are with the friends and loved ones they have around them. She wonders if she is intelligent enough to continue on, or if, as she fears, she is not as intelligent as others have told her she is and therefore will fail again.

The blizzard has finally abated, with the snows and wind dying down to where the streets and sidewalks are covered in powdery white, and visibility is clear again. Evie looks around to see others slogging their way through the deep snow, some within feet of her and others blocks away. It is as she believed – that while the wind was howling and the snow was blowing, the voices sounded further away than they truly were. She also sees that, as usual, where others congregate, she is the one left standing alone. She is proof that one can feel lonelier within a crowd than without anyone around. Who is she you ask? She is you, she is me, she is our every insecurity.

 

Good. You should devise your own category - sort of a hybrid fiction/essay type thing.

 

Ooooh, a category as unique as I am! Uh oh, if I get started, I might never stop!