Dennis Magliozzi

Winter Storm

Drinking Dark-and-Stormies at a local bar, Shannon and I watch an older couple sitting across from us at the front of the restaurant. He stares out the window and watches the snow of an early winter storm. She, dissatisfied with something about her dinner, calls the waiter over.

Shannon stirs her drink with a sugarcane stick and smiles. "We should go somewhere,” she says, “take a trip.”

“Cross-country.” I say.

“To Colorado.”

We have spoken on many occasions about moving to Colorado, living in the foothills of the Rockies and picking up odd jobs to pay the bills. Just living our lives in a new place.

“We’d have to sell the house,” I say.

“And the cars,” she adds.

We laugh at the thought of it and sit stirring our drinks, talking about what we’d need to do to “break free.”

The snow is still falling and the older couple is still at the window when we pick up our dream, warm with liquor and conversation, and carry it home with us.

Green light–
the pathless
unplowed streets