by Sonja Hakala

“Jeezus!” Gideon Brown gripped the handle of the Crow Town Bakery’s door with both hands as he stepped inside. “I can’t remember the ice ever being this bad. You can’t keep your feet on the sidewalk.”

“And it’s been sanded and salted more than once,” Stephen Bennett said from his position behind the bakery’s counter. “It’s kept folks trapped inside for days now. Even the dogs don’t want to venture out.”

“Oh my gawd,” Edie Wolfe said as she entered with her cocker spaniel, Nearly, at her side. “We were trying to get over to the store but I’m not sure we can get that far without falling.”

Nearly sat down and applied his “sweet face” to his features.

“I think your little one is craving a scone,” Gideon observed.

Stephen looked over the counter. “Yeah, that’s Nearly’s scone face, all right.”

“Whoa, can you believe that ice?” Ruth Goodwin said as she stamped her feet on the doormat and then reached down to peel off the spiked attachments to her boots. “I’ll tell ya, the motto of the post office covers only snow, rain, and ice. But it says nothing about glare ice covering every surface outdoors. There’s some mailboxes I just can’t get to.”

Just then, Crow Town’s waitress extraordinaire, Hillary Talbot, appeared from the back kitchen, a fresh pot of coffee in her hands. She raised it above her head and asked: “Anyone ready for caffeine?”

And so a new day began in the Crow Town Bakery. Every time the door opened, the treachery of the ice was condemned. Tales were told of falls, impassable roads, and the inability to give a dog a good, long walk.

“There’s nothing to play in,”…” Gideon complained to no one and everyone at the same time. “I mean the mountains are making snow—it’s sure cold enough—but if you want to snowshoe or cross-country ski…”

“…or snowmobile or hike…”

“…or even just get across the street…”

“…you gotta shuffle or use ski poles just to stay upright,” Stephen said.

“It’s ridiculous,” Ruth Goodwin declared as she fed bits of her muffin to Nearly.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Gideon asked.

For a moment, dead silence reigned throughout Carding’s favorite restaurant. Stephen shook his head as he tended a pair of over-easy eggs and waited for an answer from the roused crowd.

“Complain some more?” Edie asked.

“Demand an instant replay of winter with more snow this time?” Ruth suggested.

Silence lapped the edges of the room. Outside, one of the town’s lumbering plow trucks slowly negotiated the narrow road wrapped around the Carding green. Everyone heard the clinking of its tire chains and the hiss of sand mixed with Snow Melt as it passed by.

Then Gideon stretched his empty cup toward Hillary. “I would suggest that we all meet here tomorrow morning to complain some more,” he said. “Because it’s the only sane approach to this damn ice.”

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The Carding Chronicles are short stories written by author Sonja Hakala about the Vermont town that no one can quite find on a map. They feature the characters in her four Carding novels.

The Carding books are available from Amazon and the Chronicles appear here, on this website, every Monday. Hope to see you next week.