Oct 2 — "Nippy" — 404w

The cold blistered my fingers, rubbing them raw once again.
The snow—no, the blizzard—pushed at me, spinning me slightly until my previously vague sense of direction became as desolate and barren as the landscape in front of me. I felt what remaining of the strength of my muscles slowly leave my body as the sun broke through melting the ice, only to refreeze again underneath the meager protection I wore once the shadows returned.
Finally, I could see the end. A bright red wooden door stood only moments away, moments that stretched out across seemingly lifetimes away—
“Jonah! Get in here already! You’ll catch a cold!” a voice said from a gap that had appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry mom! I’m coming!” I yelled back.
There goes any chance of hopefully slipping back unnoticed. Next would come the lectures, the calm growlings that come with living with your two aunts for your whole life despite being old enough to have graduated from tertiary education. Not that she’d be able to of course, not with those two blasted women cooing over her. Damn family.
I pulled open the door with my numb fingers, the cold metal of the handle on the outside biting into my skin only to be pleasantly warmed by the warmer handle on the other side, heated from the constant humid environment the two heads of the household tended to enjoy. It generally just made me dizzy and lightheaded with all the hustle and heat.
“Well? Are you just going to stand there next to the door?”
Lisa put her withered hands on her bony hips and gave her haughtiest glare. I wonder how long she had spent perfecting that look. Probably quite a while actually.
“I was thinking about it, but it seems to me that it’d irritate you more if I actually came inside”
I gestured to the huge stacks of books piled in the corridor blocking almost all the doorways. They weren’t there this morning before work, so they must’ve gone on some weird cleaning spree. Again.
“You know what Beth and I do for you, Jonah. We do this to keep you safe and healthy! we can’t have all these dusty and mouldy books making you sick and disrupting your work!”
Hah, totally called it. Pointless cleaning yet again.
“You don’t get sick off dusty books you silly old crone. Come on, I need to shake———