Article: 261458 of talk.bizarre
From: ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu (Ilana)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: fire and ice
Date: 1 Dec 1995 16:55:02 GMT
Organization: NCAR/UCAR
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <49nc16$b06@ncar.ucar.edu>
Keywords: FTSD
Status: O
X-Status: 

"Well, I know you've always hated     "You've said many times you don't like
living here in the city, and now      living here in the city, and now 
that we're both working at home       that we work out of home offices 
I was thinking maybe we could         I thought that perhaps you and I could
just sell the house and move to       just sell the house and move to
Arizona."                             Alaska."

                                 "What?"

He stared at her in consternation.    She stared at him in consternation.

"I thought it would be nice to go     "I thought it would be nice to go
somewhere where it's warm all         somewhere where it's cool in the
winter, where the colors of the       summer, where the midnight sun
desert reflect the sunset, with       reflects from the glaciers, with 
saguaro cactus and red sandstone.     grizzly bears and wildflowers.
Somewhere different from here."       Somewhere different from here."

The recent real estate boom was kind to them; their house had appreciated 
enough that they could buy two very modest houses, in places where the
prices were still low.  They spent summers in a small bungalow on the
outskirts of Anchorage, winters in a Winslow trailer park.  

But every spring, he'd dally in       But every fall, she'd dally in the
the desert, urging her to go on       growing coolness of the days, urging
ahead, he'd meet her up north         him to migrate south before her, she'd
in just a week or so;  he wanted      follow soon enough;  she wanted to
to feel the heat, see the lizards     feel the sharpness of the arctic wind,
on their rocks absorb the sun.        see the aurora borealis in the sky.

                                 Years
passed, and their businesses did well enough for them to buy nicer and
larger houses, each time a new apogee, Phoenix to McGrath to Tucson to
Fairbanks to Nogales to Kotzebue.  Each year 

he lingered longer in the spring      she made excuses to stay later in
and couldn't wait to leave in the     the autumn and to anticipate the
fall, to get back to his beautiful    spring, to get back to her beautiful
desert, to the coati and pocket       tundra, to the eagles and polar
mice, the agave and ocotillo, the     bears, the fireweed and willow, the
sand beneath his feet which still     icebergs in the bay which still
retained its summer heat              remained a bit frozen

                               until one

spring he didn't go north at all.     fall she didn't go south at all.

They still are married, still love each other, or so I hear.  He is tanned
as dark as manzanita wood;  she has put on weight, but it's mostly muscle,
and it looks good on her.  They meet twice a year, on the equinoxes, in 
Seattle.  They make love several times a day in their hotel room, his hot
skin against her cool body, until their temperatures are as mingled as
their sweat and their emotions.   They walk hand in hand through Discovery
Park, marvelling at the jungle greenery which could never grow in either 
of their yards.  He tells her about drinking cheap tequila just over the
border, the asphalt melting in the sun.  She tells him about the aurora.

-- 
/\       Backcountry skiing is for anarchists and coyote angels.  Your feet 
  \_][     get cold and no one admires your new outfit.  [C. L. Rawlins]
      \__Ilana Stern | ilana@ncar.ucar.edu | http://www.ucar.edu/dss/ilana.html