The Shape of Warmth

Under the same blue sky, she remembers her dreams

         “Wow! It’s so white, Mama!”

         White, yes.

         And so very cold.

         Amina pressed her lips together, swallowing the bitterness that rose as she knelt to wrap another scarf around Mustafa’s neck. Her fingers ached even before they stepped outside.

         “Stay still,” she murmured.

         He looked like a small bundle of winter—padded jacket puffed to absurdity, wool hat tugged down too far, gloves swallowing his hands whole. Only his eyes were visible: wide, bright, full of wonder. The sight tightened something in her chest. Childhood should look like this, she reminded herself. Joyful. Unafraid.

         From the garage came the clatter of metal and the unmistakable sound of Rahman’s indecision.

         The heating had died sometime in the night.

         “You should call Dan,” Amina said, rising stiffly and moving toward the window. She brushed aside the curtain and stared out at what used to be a parking lot. Snow erased everything—cars, pathways, distance itself—leaving behind a blinding, merciless beauty.

         “I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Rahman called.

         Something crashed to the floor. Amina pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly. There would be cleanup. There was always cleanup.

         Mustafa bounced beside her, already tugging at the door handle, desperate to conquer the world beyond it. He didn’t understand yet how the snow pressed them in, how it sealed them inside their own home. Rahman had tried to clear a path earlier and nearly torn his shoulder free.

         Hot chocolate, she decided. Hot chocolate would have to be enough.

         The power was gone.

         The radio, running on fading batteries, crackled with promises of rescue teams, of plows and salt and patience. Within the next few hours, a voice said, as if hours were small things.

         Amina closed her eyes.

         The fields of Somalia rose unbidden—dry earth cracking beneath the sun, heat shimmering so fiercely it hurt to look at. Once, she had dreamed of escape from that land: from war, from waiting, from futures that ended before they began. When Rahman’s visa finally came through—after years of paperwork, interviews, hope stretched thin—they had cried together, laughing and trembling all at once.

         America meant possibility.

         She had imagined cities drenched in sunlight. Los Angeles, perhaps. Miami. Somewhere warm enough that winter was just a word.

         Instead: Chicago.

         At first, she had tried to love it. The neat streets. The modest bungalow. Neighbors who smiled and brought casseroles. She told herself that beauty came in many forms.

         But winter felt personal.

         One year in, it gnawed at her bones and her patience alike.

         “Ready, my dear,” Rahman said, reappearing with two shovels and a leaf blower he clearly didn’t understand how to use. “Backyard first. I don’t think it’s so bad over there.”

         She watched him through the steam of her untouched chocolate. He wasn’t tall or handsome in the way men back home had been, but there was a steadiness to him, a quiet refusal to give up. Even so, she could see the strain in his shoulders, the way his breath caught too easily these days.

         “You’re not going out there like this,” she said firmly. “Last time you nearly died of pneumonia.”

         He waved her off, embarrassed. “I just wasn’t dressed properly. Look—layers.”

         He did look ridiculous. Like Mustafa, he was wrapped into a caricature of winter survival.

         “ Gacaliye

Darling

,” she said softly.

         Her frustration loosened its grip.

         “Fine,” she sighed. “Together.”

         They shoved the door open, the cold slapping them hard. For hours they worked—Rahman hacking at drifts, Amina forcing her stiff arms to keep moving, Mustafa abandoning the effort entirely in favor of building tiny, crooked snowmen. Progress was slow, but real.

         When they finally collapsed onto the packed snow, lungs burning, clothes soaked, Amina tilted her head back.

         The sky was impossibly blue.

         Her throat tightened.

         Somewhere far away, beneath this very same sky, she would once have been crouched on burning stone, praying for shade, for escape, for a life she could barely imagine.

         Now she had it.

         It was harder than she expected. Colder. Lonelier.

         But it was hers.

         She slipped an arm around Rahman as his breathing grew rough, already planning how soon to drag him back inside. Snow glittered around them, cruel and beautiful all at once.

         Amina closed her eyes and made herself a promise—not to love this place blindly, but to endure it honestly.

         To find warmth where she could.

         To build a life, even here.



----------------

Winning Entry
Word Count: 744
Prompt: To kick off the Cramp's 24th Birthday celebration, write a story or poem about digging out after a 24-hour snow and ice storm. Required genre: Melodrama.
Written For: "The Writer's Cramp 24th Birthday"