a cold night

It was a cold night, made colder by the wind, which stormed out of the northwest and took out the electricity with one, healthy gust, forcing them to pull a mattress into the kitchen, where the wood-burning stove burned wood almost all night long as they lay in one another’s arms. It was icy in the morning, for they’d slept through the 4 a.m. stoking, but it didn’t seem difficult or impossible or sad. They warmed themselves in a hot shower and dried one another in the steam of the bathroom. They left that morning for each other’s separate worlds, leaving behind a bit of themselves and carrying with each other a bit of the night. In that way, everything had been perfect.