Breckenridge, CO, 2020 Ashley Bindig Bereft, icy streets reach empty arms, longing for the jostling crowds that had once trekked them, pining for the laughter and the bustle that had been commonplace. The silence had fallen all at once like a sudden loss – like an unexpected, wasting illness – leaving behind shock, desolation. Two weeks. That’s what we’d been told. The town was nestled in the sheltering arms of great mountains that had once glittered with a thousand glowing lights, refracting them and shooting them back glinting like tiny stars that blanketed every slope. Once, the hills had been a haven. They’d flocked to the hills with their hopes and their laughter and they’d all fallen together – new friends and old – the cold air snapping like joyous fire in their lungs, shining out of their eyes and the red of their cheeks. Excitement was palpable in those days, and the pure joy of flight. Two weeks. That’s what they’d said. It’s been longer. The darkest part of the year has gone by, and there was no one to comfort the hills with light and laughter in the deepest cold. Stores that had once been havens of warmth and commerce off the beaten ice are hollowed out and black. Hot cocoa and cracking fires have no place within them, because no one is there to enjoy them any longer. The few who venture are turned away by penciled signs, written a long time ago by hopeful people who had believed they’d be back soon. It couldn’t be more than a month. We’d been promised. Maybe as long as six weeks. But now, the winter’s almost over. Once the town in the mountains, under the clear winter sky, had been a place where visitors were family, united by a shared love of the snapping cold and the freedom of flight across a crust of pure snow. Now they’ve all gone away. We’d taken it for granted what the hills gave us. Under the static on the radio, unrest blooms like ice, hardening across still water. We’ve all-but forgotten what it is to be one. Ice sets in.
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