The Igloo

The damp, cool white noise of the window AC unit filled the otherwise silent room. It sounded like wind wheezing past your ears in a snowstorm; it was almost as cold, too. Accompanying the faux breeze was snow falling from the ceiling, snow of chipping paint, immediately turning to dust once it hit the wooden floors and the cotton-blend comforter atop Salem’s bed. Soon, if she didn’t move in time, she would look like a victim of an avalanche. Salem stared up at the ceiling, counting every time the AC’s breeze forced another snowflake of paint to let go and float down. She was trying to spend less time on her phone, computer, and television. So instead, she was thinking and watching paint fall.

I walked through the door of our shared room into the snowstorm. My shoulders were red from the friction of my big, green leather bag rubbing against them and digging into me with its weight. I always keep 5 notebooks, 2 journals (different sizes), 1 Kurt Vonnegut book, and a collection of pens in my bag at all times. Usually, it’s not too heavy, but it seems every time I leave the house, I end up purchasing at least one candle, and those are quick to add up in terms of heaviness. I deeply exhale as I plop my bag onto my bed and kick off my suede black ballet flats, and put them on the shoe rack next to my other two pairs of black ballet flats. First things first, I take the harvest from today’s venture out of my bag: an eight-ounce coconut soy wax candle scented with cypress, olive leaf, and charcoal. Utterly delicious—I would eat it if I could. Though there’s hardly any need since the taste is 95% scent anyway. If you’re rounding up.

I place the candle on the nearest sturdy surface and shove my hands into my pockets, practically cave-diving for my lighter. Salem hasn’t moved. I think she’s trying to collect as much ceiling-paint snow as she can, so when she gets up there will be a silhouette of her body on top of her duvet. Click, click, click. I try to ignite the lighter’s flame, which is evidently low on oil. Click, click, click…C-c-c-click. Salem slowly turns her head to face me. She doesn’t say a word. Her eyes say nothing, too, but it’s inferred that she’s asking me, How long are you going to be doing that for?

“Don’t mind me,” I say, hardly embarrassed but feeling a little bad for the disturbance. Click, click—to hell with modern technology, that’s what I say. Take me back to Walkmen, pocket watches, phone booths, and even carrier pigeons. Back when we didn’t feel the need to watch paint fall to unplug from the flattened, pixelated world we live full-time in. Back to when sobriety wasn’t forced on you when your tablet died or when your friends canceled on you. Back to when these horrible little plastic lighters didn’t stop working after only one measly week! I cave-dive into my pockets again to retrieve a little matchbook I got complimentary from a dish at a restaurant hostess stand. How’s that for analog? Pfstttttthhhhh. I strike the match and it ignites. No finickiting, no incessant clicking. To hell with modern technology.

Wwwoish. The candle is lit. Already, the smell is perfect. It’s mature and it’s feminine. Like people—like myself and Salem—candles have muscle memory. However you burn them the first time, that's how they will burn for the rest of their life, unless you do some serious intervening. I like to light my candles as soon as I can, so I don’t end up in a situation where I have to prematurely extinguish them. Candles are a lot like people in that way, too. Soft, good-smelling (usually), stubborn if extinguished early.

Salem has turned her head back now. “Should we put a work order in for that? For the paint?” I ask. “Or I suppose we could fix it ourselves.”

“I kinda like it,” Salem replies. She won’t like it after whatever this moment she’s having ends.

“How’s your thinking going?” I ask.

“Too well,” she replies. “I’m thinking of much too much. It’s kind of like a bruise, you know? It hurts, but you kind of like pressing on it? I’m falling down imaginary rabbit holes here, and it’s fun but also sore.”

I nod. I hate it when she gets this way. Why can’t she just collect candles like a normal person?

“Do you want to pretend we’re somewhere else?” I ask. It was a little game we liked to play. We both lived in Chinatown in New York City on the 10th floor of a walk-up apartment building. I thought we would get a month of free rent if we complained enough about our knees, but no cigar. So, seeing as the view from our window, as far as the eye can see, is brick, concrete, smoke, and brass, we play a game called “somewhere else.”

When we play “somewhere else,” we turn on our television, which we got for free. It takes about 3 ½ minutes to boot up, which is the perfect amount of time to make popcorn if you were going to. But we don’t make popcorn; that wouldn’t make sense for our game. Instead, we wait the 3 ½ minutes, sometimes talking through it. Then, once the black mirror has lit up, we go on YouTube and look up videos for dogs. These are the videos wealthy West Village wives leave on for their dogs when they go to Citarella so they don’t feel bad for leaving them alone—or so they feel they are taking care of something.

But we don’t have a dog. No, in this case, we are the dogs. These videos are abundant. I can’t decide if that’s sad or thoughtful. Maybe both. But regardless, Salem and I discovered that the dogs of the modern world are a bit spoiled; they have a bounty of videos of zen streams, birds, landscapes, sheep, and mountains to watch. They’re immersive and amateur. No drone footage, no 4K, no editing. They’re completely pure and mesmeric. So, when we play “somewhere else,” we take a pick of one of these heavenly dog videos and play it, and we watch it in totality. Beginning to end, and we imagine, rather easily, we’re wherever that video has taken us. There’s something ironic about cooping yourself up inside to watch a video of the outside, but we don’t have many options and we’ll take what we can get. To hell with modern technology.

“That’s a good idea,” Salem agrees with me.

Click. I turn on the television. For those 3 ½ minutes, I stare at my new eight-ounce candle and contemplate whether I love Salem more than I love cypress, olive leaf, and charcoal. It takes me up to 3 minutes to decide that I do.

Phwoosh. I blow out the candle. Salem almost jolts up out of shock at the action, but she doesn’t; her soon-to-be silhouette is still intact. It’s okay, I’ll do some serious intervening with the candle later. Looking at my desk and dresser, I seek the perfect option. Each shelf I own is lined with candles. Candles of all types, at least one for every day I’ve left our shoebox apartment in Chinatown. You’d think it would be overwhelming, but it’s not. It’s security, certainty.

I find a 12-ounce one. It’s in a cloudy blue glass with a big white label sticker that reads “winter morning.” It smells like paper, in a good way. This one has been burned properly; its muscle memory is impeccable.

Pfstttttthhhhh. I strike another match, and it ignites. To hell with modern technology.

Wwwoish. The candle is lit. Already, the smell is perfect. It’s plain and subtle.

I press play on a video for dogs set in Alaska. The GoPro camera rests on a rock and faces out at a snowy, barren forest. Squirrels come into frame on occasion, sometimes birds. But for the most part, the leaves and brush just move with the wind.

The white noise from our AC still plays, this time harmoniously with the video. Snow still falls from our ceiling, and our candle flickers with the wind we’ve created in our city apartment. I put on the fleece that lives on the back of my desk chair and stand over Salem. She turns to me. I don’t say anything, nor do my eyes, but she knows.

She gently gets up, her hands outstretched for me to take. I assist her out of bed. It takes a moment, but soon we are both standing, looking down at her comforter. There she was. Her silhouette was made out of secondhand Pottery Barn sheets and probably asbestos. We look at it until we hear a squirrel in the video behind us. Salem picks up her duvet and shakes the paint dust off. She gets back into bed, this time underneath the covers, and holds it open to invite me in.

Soon we’re both in the igloo, warmed by each other’s body heat. Footsteps above us walk and paint snow from the ceiling again.

“We should put in a work order for that,” Salem tells me.

“We will when we get back,” I reply.

The End