It is dark and warm. A deep, soothing slumber enfolds me. Gradually, a sound intrudes on the cocoon. It is a harsh, loud, crunching sound which peels away layers of sleep and lays open consciousness. The surroundings become vivid: my small finished basement room from boyhood, with two small windows high up near the ceiling.
The crunching demands investigation. Throwing aside the covers, my hands grope to slide open a window opaqued by a thick winter frost. A blast of dry morning subarctic cold hits me--my father works in the darkness of the driveway next to the house with the following items: two ultraviolet spotlights, two engine-block heaters plugs, and a gray army surplus horse blanket. He opens the hood of his '53 Ford Flathead V-8 Customline, plugs in the heater cords, clamps the spotlights onto each fender, turns them on, and trains them on the engine. He then drapes the horse blanket behind the fan housing, crunches around through the snow, and starts the car. He gets out, closes the door, and crunches away, leaving the Ford running. The clock on my homework desk catches my eye--3:30 A.M.
Again, a deep slumber enfolds me. Now a hard metal clanking pierces my brain. My eyes open to see the old Westclox hopping and shimmying its way across the desk. It reads 6:30 A.M. The Ford is still running outside.
The kitchen is warm and filled with the smell of baking bread. My mother is in her late thirties. She kindly serves me an appealing bowl of hot oatmeal, which upon exploration with a spoon reveals thick legions of thick, tumorlike lumps. Sadly, only one of them is an undissolved chunk of brown sugar. The bread will not be ready until evening. Two pairs of socks, full long johns, thermal T-shirt, shirt, sweater, corduroy pants, full snowmobile suit, scar, full-mask balaclava, undermitts, and pairs of thick mukluks and gloves later, the door is opened to me and the day revealed. A mini blizzard awaits. After presenting myself in the driveway there is no car waiting but only wheezing, grinding stalls from the V-8. With a shrug, my father admits his efforst against the cold have failed. He is not sure how he will get to work himself, and the only recourse for me is to walk.
The falling snow obscures the hard-packed little path through the woods behind my house. A chilling howl nearby freezes me in mid-step. Yellow stains and frozen black sausage-like things beside the trail confirm what is already known to me--timber wolves. This causes me to hasten on my way, and my goal becomes visible from atop a hundred-foot-high ridge. Multiple wisps of white chimney smoke curl up from the houses in a valley below. My descent begins down the sixty-degree-angle slope in a wild fourty-second ski-less slalaom which takes me between stumps, exposed roots, and sharp ice shards. By half skidding, sliding and running I reach the bottom, bringing me to the edge of a seven-foot-wide creek. It is newly frozen. Use of makeshift bridge made from rotten timbers, scraps of old doors, and ropes will not be necessary.
My feet probe the ice ahead of me. A third of the way across, a half, so far so good...three-fourths...a crack...In an instant the frozen surface separates beneath me, resulting in a full plunge into the icy, neck-high waters. My clothes have frozen around me by the time I reach the highway. An official Parks green government truck drives by. Behind the wheel is a man with a false face named Cornish. The passenger's face is also clear--my father's. He does not see me. The vehicle passes. He is on an inspection tour of the creek, the same creek which has frozen me and one he has constructed in his capacity as one of the Capital Commission's civil engineers. My angry howls vie in volume with those of the wolves on the ridge behind me.
Then there is a neighborhood composed of houses constructed from tar paper or black insulation fiberboard and imitation red brick. Huge Chryslers and Cadillacs, purchased on time, sit in the driveways. I am approached by five local residents who attack me, ripping away my ski mask, gloves and knapsack. My desperate run takes me past a house which boasts a steaming yellow and brown open pit in its frontyard bordering the sidewalk. The sight of it and the truck parked in its drive--"Cesspools Pumped"--is reassuring to me, for it signals the proximity of my destination two houses away. The loss of my last few pages of homework into this private open cess takes nothing from my joy of escape from my assailants through the gates into my schoolyard.
Once inside, the only method for preventing frostbite is to strip away all of my clothes in front of my schoolmates. An exam for which there has been no warning or preparation is set in front of me. After failing this in my underwear, recess is called, my clothes dried by the hot rads are donned and all of us are sent into the schoolyard, where several other children convince me to stick my tongue on a flagpole. It freezes to the metal. Hot water is brought to freeze me. The school day eventually ends and my trek home by the same route begins.
NOTE: This recurring dream derives from events which occurred each winter's day on my three-mile commute from 38 Thibeault Street to my elementary school, Our Lady of the Annunciation on Davies Street in the town of Hull, Quebec, Canada.