Into the Outside

 

His face was pressed against the glass in an attempt to see outside. The cold on the opposite side had grown so extreme that visibility was practically null but still he tried. The chill of the glass was a glorious contrast to the warm that massaged his back. He had grown so desperate to feel something other than the comfort of his current surroundings that he no longer cared if it was unpleasant. 

“If I try hard enough, maybe I can pass through the glass and feel this chill on the whole of me,” he thought. He shifted from his left cheek to his right and experienced the same thrill of change. The left side of his face now free from the chill outside tingled as the warmth of the ambient air teased his nerve endings. The right side slowly grew numb, and he waited until all feeling was gone. With a slow roll to center, his nose and forehead pressed into the cold. He breathed heavily onto the glass with the hope that his warm air would penetrate the ice outside, allowing him the chance to see something, anything, beyond his glass prison.

He stepped back from the ice laden window and marveled at the blue-white rectangle in the midst of the wood paneling of his walls. “I’m here, I’m stuck, and I have no idea what going into the outside would be,” he thought. He rubbed both hands on his prickly week-old growth on his head. “Maybe I should grow it out,” he thought. “Long or short, washed or not, none of it actually makes any difference.”

He backed away from the window and stood a moment by the fireplace. In an odd way, its orange glow and crackling were eerily familiar to the bluish-white glow and the whipping sounds of wind outside the window. He stood until his shirt and pants became unbearably hot, stepping away to retrieve an oatmeal stout from the refrigerator. He took a long drink and poured himself a cup of coffee with which he immediately burned his tongue and throat. “Hmm, same strange contrast,” he said out loud.

“I’m safe here, I’m comfortable here, and I have everything I need here,” he thought. “Why would I go outside into that Nordic hell?” The orange cat sprawled out on the rocking chair near the fire raised its head and looked at him, giving the impression that he had an answer but refused to share it. 

He stood on the border between the dining room and the living room. Two landscapes of differing brown, one wood and one tile, one warm and one cold. He looked at the two drinks in his hands, one hot, one cold, both brown, both offering some sort of consolation, similar yet distinct. Unsure of anything at this point, he alternated his liquid consumption, feeling the influence of the alcohol and the caffeine, a sort of combat within his system. 

“So, cat, what do you think?” he said. “Should I go outside and experience the cold for real? Or should I be satisfied with tiny touches of the cold glass?” The cat merely looked at him, saying nothing. The creature stood, aggressively arched his back, and hopped down from the chair. With a slight pause in front of the fire, it walked to the front door to stand on its hind legs as if reaching for the door handle.

“So that’s it?” he asked. “That’s your answer? If I want to go out, you’ll go out with me? Curious.” He placed his two drinks on the dining table behind him, walked into the living room to begin removing his clothing, one piece at a time, folding each one neatly and placing them in a pile on the couch. “If you’re going out naked, then I will as well.”

The cat, still reaching for the door handle, waited patiently for this weird, bald, pink creature behind him to let him out. A sharp intake of air passed his lips as he flipped the deadbolt to the open position. “Alright kitty cat,” he said, “here we go.” With a tug on the door handle, the door refused to move. Double checking the deadbolt and finding that it actually was unlocked, he pulled on the door handle a second time and with a loud crack, the death grip of the ice outside gave way and greeted him with a blast of cold he could never have imagined.

Like a bolt, the cat disappeared into the glowing white wasteland. Bald and pink, he too stepped out onto the snow with its thick layer of ice holding it in place. He clicked the door in place behind him and ventured out to the midst of a featureless white, the wind whipping against him, his flesh puckering and contracting with each blow. He cupped his hands over his mouth and nose as the unbearable cold made it difficult to breath.

The warmth of his body wicked away far quicker than he thought possible. Within moments, he could no longer feel his feet touching the ice beneath him and he stopped his movement with a glance back toward the front door. “Man, how does the cat do this?” he wondered. Moving as slowly as possible to avoid falling down, he shuffled across the ice, a hasty retreat from what he realized was a terrible mistake.

He stopped at the edge of the porch and carefully navigated what should have been a simple process. One foot up onto the first step, adjusting his center of balance, then taking a second step. Over and over, he performed a sequence that should have been a thoughtless effort. Finally taking hold of the door handle he pressed his way back into the warmth of his living room. A quick orange blur shot past him as he turned to close the door behind him. “Oh, good, you made it back,” he said to the cat. “Now what do we do?”

The cat returned to his position on the rocking chair and promptly closed his eyes. Still numb and hoping that frostbite had not set in, he shuffled across the hardwood floor and approached the fireplace. Like the roaring conflagration before him, his own flesh felt as if it too was on fire. Still a good distance from the fireplace, he stopped and endured the assault upon his flesh. In the course of the next hour, he slowly worked his way across the room toward the life-giving warmth that glowed orange before him.

“That was clearly a mistake,” he thought. “But at least now I know. As least I can say that I tried it, experienced something different, and learned something.” When the fleshly torment subsided, he rubbed himself down and hoped that he endured no permanent damage. After a long shower that restored him to normalcy, he redressed and sat in the rocking chair with the cat on his lap and a book in his hand.