The Snowplow Driver

GAËLLE PLANCHENAULT

December 5th, 3:53 a.m.

The snow falls on the windshield like strands torn off a gigantic ball of cotton candy. I’ve been going at it for hours, shovelling to the east-side end of the slope what has by now turned to the consistency of frozen cookie dough. The brownish, silky chunks we call “crud” are formed by the back and forth movements of the plow against the fresh snow. By the time the static of the radio interrupt the mechanical gestures of my aching body, the vibration of the truck has carved its tremblor inside my calf muscles.

Time for a break.

It is when I park the truck by the side of the snow bank that I catch a shift in the corner of my vision. So peripheral that I could have missed it, but evident enough that it registers in my body and throws my senses back on alert. When I look at it, however, it’s almost gone, unwinding the rings of its tail around the trunk of a cedar tree. Never heard of a snow snake before. If the creature escaped from its owner’s vivarium, it won’t be long before it freezes to death.

That night, the snowstorm front reached the suburb of Longborough at 5:12 p.m. In less than two hours, houses, cars, and roads were covered under a blanket of snow that reaches the top of the truck tires. My shift started at 11 p.m. and I am due to work until early morning, meaning seven hours of going around the block, and then up and down that slope, at the end of which I have now formed a wall that is five feet high. In the truck, I hardly have the space to stretch my legs, and, with the engine off, the temperature inside the cabin has plummeted to a mere five degrees above zero.

“Paul?” the radio crackles.

The needles of sleep deprivation jab at my eyeballs. If I close my eyes for a few seconds, I can just start to release the pressure . . .

“Paul . . .”

The snake hangs from the top of the truck, his silvery eyes fixed on me. It finds its way through the window that I have left ajar to prevent condensation, pushes its

loops down the dashboard. When its head comes to the level of my hips, it extends the front coil of its body up between my legs . . .

“—bring your ass over here! The guys need an extra truck on this side of 8th Avenue.”

I startle and switch on the radio intercom. Wrestling to release the hold that slumber still has on my brain, I manage a brief, “Coming.”

By the time I get to 8th Avenue, the team is struggling to keep the sneckdown in good shape to provide the right conditions for morning traffic to be fluid.

Lukas is there.

My heart skips a beat when I recognize the slouch of his shoulders as he leans on a shovel. I remember the unsolicited hand he put on my arm when I changed in the portacabin earlier, the intimate smile I turned away from. How had he managed to see the woman under the fortress of winter clothing? I blush when I recall that I had also noticed him, since the very first day in fact, when he looked straight into my eyes—like few people do—and that the acknowledgement took me by surprise. I excelled in ignoring that part of me, and succeeded even in burying the undesired body below thick, masculine parkas and shell trousers. The identity that has remained unclaimed since childhood is threatening to unravel.

“Hi dudes, how is the sneckdown coming along?” I say. My tongue, like a foreign organ in my mouth, refuses to articulate the words. Nobody says anything, but Gary gives Lukas a smirk. Surely, it’s not the fling between Lukas and I that makes them take the piss. I’ve always been the object of their ridicule. Among other things, they’ve been mocking me for the way I speak. I can’t deny relishing words, their variety, and particularly the technical ones. For example, everyone knows slush, but what about smud—the muddy snow that comes with warmer weather? Have you heard of bulletproof? The densely-packed snow that is so hard you can't leave a trace in it? And chokable? A powder so fine and deep you could drown in it or ‘choke.’

Helping the team move snow away from the road and shape the corner sidewalk expansion that constrains the area where cars turn, I remember that, when I was a child, my mother used to tell me about the people who lived on this land before us and the numerous terms they had to describe snow’s consistencies and colours. After generations of displacement and assimilation, most of the words lost their purposes and were erased from their vocabularies. As a result, we were not only deprived of their meaning, but also of the richness of their connection to the

world. When I was hired as a snowplow driver—a job that would help my mom and I get by while supplementing the pension money that we received, her as an invalid, and I, as a caregiver—I made a point to memorize the lexicon of the job. I became obsessed with its nuances and insisted on using them with my colleagues who couldn’t care less. One needs words to describe the world with precision. We know of sleet, but ignore skift, the light fall of snow or rain, and graupel, which are granular snow pellets. When we are unable to name things, reality escapes us and we live in a blur.

January 6th, 9 p.m.

When I arrive at work, the field beside the portacabin is an open canvas. It stopped snowing in the early afternoon but the snow that had been falling for days has erased all features of the land under a blanket of chokable. Though I struggle with the tension headache I brought from home, looking at the snow that glitters blue under the Milky Way is restoring a sense of inner peace. I love the long winters here, they’re my favorite, and the amazing frozen landscapes that are inhospitable to men, and yet pull me in.

Mother and I argued tonight, and I left earlier, letting her finish her meal by herself. She’s been mean these last weeks, cruel even. The pain has become unbearable, the morphine not bringing any relief anymore. She was so brave during chemo that this new side of her is disconcerting. I, on the contrary, have not changed: I spend most of my days looking after her, the way I’ve always done—how could she ignore the sacrifice I made for her?

By the time I have finished working on the slope, the pain behind my left ear is piercing. My nose is feeling dry and the last time I looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed that a drop of blood had formed under my left nostril. With my thick gloves on, I couldn’t quite wipe it, and I hope that no one will see me before I clean my face in the portacabin. I have been feeling so tired, so stretched, that my focus is wearing thin. Half an hour later, the drip under my nose resumes and I briefly consider going home earlier. Then the clock hits five thirty, and I see it.

I quickly realize that its stare was what made me look up (did the nose bleed attract it?). But no sooner do I meet its yellow eyes than the creature dashes away

between aspens, spruces, and fir trees. The branches—so heavy with snow that their boughs hang down to the ground—spring free, and the snow powders away with a shimmer. In the silvery light, I cannot identify the beast: if it’s a bird, its size would make it a relative of the ostrich, but it rather looks like a cross between a mountain lion and a man—don’t misunderstand me, I know there’s no such thing, but the light is so dim that the lack of colours makes it difficult to see forms in the shadows.

I stare hard into the forest, but as the snow dust settles, I can’t see it anymore (there is no doubt, however, that my head is still throbbing). I know that lack of sleep brings hallucinations—this wouldn’t be the first time. I also know that shapeshifters have the ability to take multiple appearances to trick, even kill, humans. If I first viewed the encounter with a calm curiosity, it is when reason makes me evaluate the improbability of such a creature in the middle of the boreal forest that I panic. My hands are shaking so hard that it takes a few times for the gear stick to catch in the reverse position.

No sooner do I start reversing though, than I am forced to break hard. Lukas is standing by the side of the snow plow. He isn’t saying anything, but I sense that he wants me to let him in. I can’t refuse—a ground blizzard is lifting the powder snow and it’s freezing out there. I wouldn’t want him to catch his death. When he joins me, the lack of space in the cabin forces us to sit close to one another, and quickly he has his hand on my thigh and his tongue in my mouth. His arms are holding me tight, wrapping around my body like tentacles.

January 13th, 4:55 a.m.

It is my third night shift this week. The worst for me. It hits my body hard as the lack of sleep makes me nauseous from the moment I switch the engine on. Curiously though, I know that by the time breakfast comes, I’ll be craving junk food—processed aberrations like doughnuts and fried chicken—saturated fats that will, if I succumb, bring mean headaches.

Working night shift is strange. It’s like your body is in a permanent state of jet lag, crossing time zones without realizing it. Another downside of night jobs is that you don't see people. I go home and look at them sitting nicely in their cars, going to work, looking fresh and proper, their suits pressed, and their faces freshly shaved. Meanwhile, I feel gross and my eyes are bloodshot: it’s like I just killed someone.

When I go back to the portacabin at the end of my shift, Lukas is there. We hardly spoke since the night he joined me in the truck. It’s not that he’s giving me the cold shoulder, rather that he’s behaving as if nothing happened. Of course, I found it wiser not to mention it either. What would I say? Anyway, if he wanted to do it again, he’d know where to find me.

I look at his back while he removes his shell pants. There’s a stain of sweat on the fabric of his T-shirt between his shoulder blades that is the shape of a butterfly—or a female reproductive system, depending on the way you look at it. I recall the salty taste left on the tip of my tongue when I licked the space between his shoulders and the skin of his neck that smelled of ozone and fresh snow.

I did send him a couple of text messages after that, to let him know that I didn’t dislike what happened between us, but never heard from him.

Now that I look at him putting his pants away in his locker, I feel bad for having been so withdrawn. I muster some courage and go to him. As I lean on the door of his locker, the only words that I manage to utter are a pathetic, “Why are you ignoring me?”

After he’s gone, I sit in the changing room for a while. The sweet memories of Lukas’s tender gestures have given way to those of the encounter that took place a week ago. My body is still trembling with the fear that seized me when I realized that this was no ordinary being.

I know that it is there, waiting for me (or is it a figment of my imagination?). I feel it stare through the window. A shiver runs down my spine in anticipation of what’s to come.

But who am I fooling? I never was afraid of the jaws that bite and the claws that catch. What terrifies me these days is simply going home, to the space that’s been left empty since mother died the night Lukas joined me in the snowplow truck.

January 14th, 2 a.m.

Fourth night shift. This time, I am cruising: so high on fatigue that my body doesn’t register it.

A fresh layer of snow is coating the bulletproof. As I go up and down the slope, the plow scrapes against the layer of ice underneath and the screeching sound makes

me grind my back molars in return. The nerve pain reminds me of a bad tooth that needs to be removed.

Now that mother is gone, I’ll have time to look after myself. I gave her everything and, for that, am still a virgin at thirty-two. That is, before Lukas did it to me. Or did he?

“Look Paul, I don’t have time for this bullshit,” was the excuse that he gave when I confronted him in the portacabin. He closed the door of the locker, causing me to stumble slightly. Not giving me a chance to object, he then grabbed his bag and made a dash for the door.

Does he have regrets?

It's when I scrape down the slope for the thirteenth time that my front beam sweeps across the figure of a young girl. She stands at the edge of the forest, staring at me. Unbelievably, her thin body is bare-chested: the skin is pale and has a translucent quality, the limbs are so fragile that my heart aches to see them unprotected, exposed to the night’s freezing temperatures. Though I’m the one who is inside and warm, my lips are frozen. The girl looks at me for a while, then turns on her heels, and disappears into the forest.

January 15th, 1 a.m.

Tonight, it seems that I won’t be able to go to bed and sleep. I’m not working, but the night shift routine has messed up my circadian cycle.

I snooze for an hour, then wake up, eyes wide open, the thought of mother preventing me from falling back asleep.

How was I to know that she would die that night? I do feel bad for not holding her hand while she passed away, not telling her that I forgave her. How could she know who I was, the intensity of the voice inside me?

Did she choke on her meal, that evening when she called my name for the very last time?

“Paul, Paul . . .” her voice already no more than a breath.

“It’s Paula!” I yelled before I slammed the door.

As I stir in my bed, I return to that last exchange that I had with Lukas, the venom that came from his mouth:

“Crazy bitch!”

Lukas had been so tender when he held her—me—in the cab, careful not to bruise the tender skin. Why did he turn away when my lips searched for his and he spat the words that branded my soul?

“I don’t do guys.”

I return to the end of the back alley and the slope that I have been shovelling time after time during these sleepless nights. The smud makes it a slippery hazard. The truck, driven tonight by another crew member, is doing a neat job of clearing the mess. For now, it is defeated. But more snow will fall. It is a useless war that we’re waging against one another: the snow will always be back, long after me, long after the children of my children have passed. And when it does, the snowplowers will be getting at it.

Tonight though, we’re calling a truce, I and the creature out there. I don’t know if it’s real, or what’s real. But I know that it knows what I am.

And tonight, I’ll go find it.