GABRIEL CARDOSO
WHITE NOISE VOWS Painful, super-heated words had dissolved into single-syllable remarks and then silence. One of them had turned the stereo down to a level just above mute, and the sounds of the flapping windshield wipers and the snow tires crunching through fresh powder were too repetitive to be considered anything but white noise. White noise to match the cold, white blanket that was steadily covering the hibernating, mountain landscape. Charlie was hunched over the steering wheel like an ossified nursing home resident, rather than a young man seemingly just past his prime, trying his best to peer through the pelting snow and continue their dangerous, two-and-a-half-hour drive home. His wife Hazel sat in the passenger seat, staring out the side window, lost in her own microburst of frozen thoughts. “Why did you even tell me at all?” he asked with a shake of his head and a pained snicker at his own expense. He didn’t bother looking at her. He just kept his eyes locked on the faint set of tire tracks he was following faithfully to keep them on the road and out of the ravine. “Obviously you have a complete fool for a husband. You could’ve gotten away with it forever.” “Please don’t do that. You know I don’t feel that way.” “No, I don’t know anything about the way you feel actually.” “What do you want me to say, Charlie? What do you need me to say to you that I haven’t already said?” 131
