A sky that could crack

The conductor had warned the passengers that there would be a thirty degree temperature difference between their departure from Union Station to Fargo, North Dakota. It seemed impossible to fathom for passengers who were only beginning to thaw from the single digit temperatures reported that morning from Navy Pier. Lindsey observed the dried chemical compounds of street slush mixed with salt that spotted the floor of the train. The random patterns of crusted salt, white outlines of nebulous puddles, reminded her of the terrible floral patterned carpeting in her grandmother's nursing home. She and her mother visited the nursing home weekly during Lindsey's senior year of high school. It seemed that every week her grandmother's worsening dementia required another level of care. The medical team finally decided that it would be beneficial to place her grandmother on the memory care floor, a locked unit with horrible floral carpeting.

The train pulled out of the station and Lindsey placed her headphones over her ears and fast forwarded her mixed tape to Big Head Todd and the Monsters. She watched the city's torn backside transition into the wooded lots of the north shore and then flatten as they passed over the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Hit play- rewind- flip tape- hit play- fast forward- flip tape. The conductor listed off the lowering temperatures every half hour with the enthusiasm of counting down to new years.

"Negative five, folks. And that doesn't include the windchill!" Lindsey figured the conductor was a North Dakota native.

Lindsey's family had petitioned the floral carpeting be removed from the nursing home two weeks after her grandmother moved onto that unit. There were faces on the floor, her grandmother insisted and thus she required hours to walk down the hallway as not to step on a single face. "Those poor, poor children just aren't moving and I am so afraid of hurting them," she lamented. After three missed lunches, irregular attendance at Bingo in the social room, and a few breakdowns where her grandmother stood paralyzed by the stress of the task, Lindsey's mother did some research. It was not uncommon for the perception of people with dementia to see faces in busy patterns of wallpapers or carpeting. Lindsey's mother argued that the nursing home should have known better but Lindsey wondered what it truly felt like to believe that she was risk on stepping on someone's face at all times.  The nursing home was surprisingly receptive to her mother's request and the stack of medical literature addressing perceptions of the demented. The carpeting was removed and replaced by a solid color with small diamonds. Her grandmother successfully returned to Bingo but not without occasionally commenting on the cockroaches in the hallway.

The negative ten degree sky over Madison was a brilliant blue that was so clear it appeared at risk for cracking open. The train continued to barrel through open fields and the sky was as big as one could ever imagine. Lindsey briefly pondered how awful it would be if the train lost power and they were stuck in the middle of nowhere in negative double digits. The passengers would have to unpack their luggage and wear multiple sweatshirts to keep their body temperatures from dipping below ninety degrees. At what point would they run out of food? If there was no electricity, would the train be able to contact the outside world? She refocused on the clouds, stark white against the deepening shade of blue. Their amassing white mounds molded into little rabbits and bunnies that hung above her. She watched them jump, scamper, and huddle overhead until her mind eased again.

"Stabilizing at negative fifteen, folks, but just wait until we pass the twin cities! What a day to be in the midwest."