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bookishwenchJust to clarify, each chapter title is one of the Winter Soldier's activation words.
Brooklyn in the winter is cold right down to the bone. He remembers that, reminded by the cold that wraps around him now, settling into his spine, making his fingertips twitch sporadically with the urge to bring a drop of warmth back to his flesh. Siberia is colder than Brooklyn, making his teeth ache with despair.
There was a coal-burning furnace that lurked in the corner of the basement of Steve’s apartment building. It flickered with bright orange and yellow and red, looking a little too close to the picture of hell he heard about on Sunday sometimes. It was always warm near it, though, warmer than his place or Steve’s, warm enough to pretend it was summer and school was out and they had all day to do nothing in particular. The truth was as soon as they walked up the basement steps, the cold would start to drape over them, and noses would run and there was homework and chores and a thousand other things that reminded them it was only January. Christmas was over, and it would be months before anything like a thaw happened.
Steve liked checkers. They would hunker down on the basement floor on Steve’s dad’s old Army blanket and pull out the battered board they’d pasted back together. Bottletops made up their checkers: orange Moxie ones for Steve’s side, red and yellow Squirt caps for his. Sometimes it was hard to see the difference by the dim furnace light and they’d squabble about whose piece was whose. On particularly good days, Steve’s mother would give them molasses cookies with sweet, sugary white icing on them, the taste of the warm spices lingering on their tongues, and they’d play until it got too dark to see.
When night took over the sky, and it happened early in the winter, they’d stash the board behind the furnace and lay there in the dark on the army blanket, talking about not much: girls, school, what kind of car they wanted to drive someday, the serials from Saturday’s matinee. It was warm and drowsy, a happy memory, one he wanted to cling to and keep safe.
In the end, the cold would always wrench the light from his grasping hand, leaving him alone in the dark once more.
Brooklyn in the winter is cold right down to the bone. He remembers that, reminded by the cold that wraps around him now, settling into his spine, making his fingertips twitch sporadically with the urge to bring a drop of warmth back to his flesh. Siberia is colder than Brooklyn, making his teeth ache with despair.
There was a coal-burning furnace that lurked in the corner of the basement of Steve’s apartment building. It flickered with bright orange and yellow and red, looking a little too close to the picture of hell he heard about on Sunday sometimes. It was always warm near it, though, warmer than his place or Steve’s, warm enough to pretend it was summer and school was out and they had all day to do nothing in particular. The truth was as soon as they walked up the basement steps, the cold would start to drape over them, and noses would run and there was homework and chores and a thousand other things that reminded them it was only January. Christmas was over, and it would be months before anything like a thaw happened.
Steve liked checkers. They would hunker down on the basement floor on Steve’s dad’s old Army blanket and pull out the battered board they’d pasted back together. Bottletops made up their checkers: orange Moxie ones for Steve’s side, red and yellow Squirt caps for his. Sometimes it was hard to see the difference by the dim furnace light and they’d squabble about whose piece was whose. On particularly good days, Steve’s mother would give them molasses cookies with sweet, sugary white icing on them, the taste of the warm spices lingering on their tongues, and they’d play until it got too dark to see.
When night took over the sky, and it happened early in the winter, they’d stash the board behind the furnace and lay there in the dark on the army blanket, talking about not much: girls, school, what kind of car they wanted to drive someday, the serials from Saturday’s matinee. It was warm and drowsy, a happy memory, one he wanted to cling to and keep safe.
In the end, the cold would always wrench the light from his grasping hand, leaving him alone in the dark once more.
