“I don’t know how we would ever survive without this coat,”
I said as I surveyed the sky—overcast, per usual—and then touched the globe.
As I laid my hand upon the coolness my mind became occupied with the shaking
of Noelle, for she was always shivering when the coat wasn’t laid upon her: “My love,
you seem to be moving this whole universe with those shakes.” It was not funny
to her at the time, for she was busy staring at her reflection in the glass.
“Why must you look at your face in the glass?”
I asked my darling as I tried to pull all the warmth out of the fur coat
before handing it back to Noelle. It was nearly funny
to me how we could be trapped, yet attempt not to notice the globe
of which held our bodies, our foggy breath, and our love.
Noelle did not answer, but she accepted the offering and slowed her shaking.
To avoid myself from the inevitable shaking,
I instead observed my little cage as if I wasn’t imprisoned in a orb of glass,
noting the plastic trees, plastic log cabin, plastic rocks… at least my love
Noelle was not made of plastic. Her stiff, yellow hair had a thin coat
of snow upon it, yet she did not seem to notice. So, I took the liberty of pulling her away from the globe
and wiping the snow away. “Isn’t it funny
that you never notice the snow in your hair, dear?” I’m not sure if funny
was necessarily the correct term, for Noelle began shaking.
This time it was not just Noelle but the entire universe, the entire globe
shifted and spun. I was thrown into a glass
wall as snow fluttered around my head and into my eyes. I desperately looked for the coat—
Noelle would be in the coat and then when the shaking stopped I could save her. “Oh my love,
where are you, my love?”
The earthquake finally subsided—that one was bad—and the snowflakes seemed to think it was funny
to block my view. I scrambled to spot that big coat
and felt the plastic floors for a shaking
body, maybe I could feel her quivering. By the silvery glass
I caught her yellow hair among the white flakes. She was leaned up against the globe.
“Noelle! Dearest!” The world rushed by as I lifted her rigid body from the edge of the globe,
setting her upright and kissing her cheeks. “Are you okay?” I asked, and in that moment I did love
her, even if she hogged the coat and looked with glass-
like eyes past my searching ones. I began to smile, thinking of how funny
it truly was, trapped in a stirring, lifeless, shaking
world with nothing to share but a coat.
I moved us away from the rounded glass, reverting Noelle’s gaze not at the globe
but on my numbing face. I shed the coat off her shoulders and was thankful for love,
for this little sphere of plastic and snow. “Funny,” I said. Noelle began shaking.