Lying in Winter

The wind followed me, taunting and rough, until I reached the ravine and plunged down the side into the copse of squat trees, their latteral spread covering most of the bank this side of the water. I sat hunch-backed on my heels until I was sure no one else was going to join me. My face burned from the cold and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I stuck my hands into my armpits and made myself as small as I could, thinking the cold might let me go for awhile. Inside my shoes, my toes were doing a maniacal little dance of their own volition but nothing alleviated the ache and I thought about the stories I'd heard of people feeling calm and blissful right before they froze to death. I felt as far from bliss as I could get and assumed I was alright for awhile.

There are moments I'll remember as pivotal, usually for the desperation and always for the revelation. Like a cornered animal my mind finally accepts the situation and turns down a path, unmarked and fresh, to a conclusion never dreamed off and in the middle of the road is the epiphany, waiting for a vessel.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the chocolate bar. It was a Big Turk and I hate them. I've never been to Turkey and I have a hard time accepting that Turks sit around eating these things and feeling delight. It was the closest to my escape route, however, and my newly minted life of crime wasn't going to be thwarted by my palate. I took a bite and nearly gagged. I spit it out and threw away the rest and decided there, under the shrubs, that I just wasn't cut out for this kind of thing. If I couldn't steal what I liked, what was the point of stealing at all? Still, I waited for another twenty minutes before crawling away from it, ashamed and nearly frozen; I was afraid I'd been followed. My own inflated guilt made me believe that there must be a posse of candy store employees out beating the bushes for a fifty cent chocolate bar in the dead of winter, wanting to teach a lesson in humility to an eight year old boy who was stupid enough to steal the worst chocolate bar in the world.
Sometimes we don't need anyone to teach us anything as the truths can come from within. I don't have the constitution for crime, the creek is a bad place to be in the middle of winter, Big Turks are gross and I can punish myself better than anyone, thank you very much.