Mimicking Winter

'Slow as molasses' was an idiom she had learned that day. She was passing by a normal group of students, one of a dozen chatting in the hallway. Someone brought it up, a normal statement, to no perturbation of those listening. Kaya, however, stopped, standing on the middle of the hallway, her shoes scuffing against the polished floor.

"What does that mean?"

"What?"

"Slow as molasses."

"Just...really slow."

"Oh."

Winter was coming slow as molasses. The Lounge hummed in a chorus, a flurry of breezes. Kaya kneeled on the couch, hands on the back, face close to a fan that was blasted on high, whirring so violently that it threatened to come off its stand. Her nose was high, her eyes closed against the torrent. smally, she shivered. The girl was promised cold winters that hadn't begun to deliver, the autumn balm mild and mediocre. It was so cold at her home! She was starting to miss it, starting to feel overheated. Two more fans oscillated behind her, making a three dimensional vortex of cold air, as close as she could come to winter. It felt nice. Her sweater fluttered in her manufactured tornado.

All the while, she whispered under her breath.

"Molasses, molasses."

What did it mean? Why was it so slow? It felt sultry on her lips, cool and smooth. Perhaps it was because of that. It was a slow word.

"You plan on freezing us both to death or what?" Declan snapped from the other side of the room. Lately, he'd enjoyed the comfort of the lounge and had found it to be one of his favorite spots when it came to spending free time outside of class. Sprawled out on the couch not too far from where the girl stood mumbling nonsense, the spring barely even looked up from the phone that was practically glued to his face as he spoke to Kaya. It wasn't that he wasn't used to the cold. In fact, he spent a lot of his winters in the mountains outside in the snow so it wasn't too much of a bother. It was more of the fact that one of the what seemed like hundreds of fans over there was blowing directly on him and he wasn't dressed for the cold just yet. It wasn't time. The leaves were barely beginning to turn; he wanted to enjoy the warmth just a little bit longer while he still could. "I mean, I don't know about you but I still have quite a bit that I want to live for. If you want to freeze then be my guest."

It was quite strange how the boy managed to appear; he startled Kaya, who flinched and spun to look at the boy, owl-eyed, mouth to her fist which hit comfortably in her sleeve. As she turned, her braid blew in her face, flapping like a wind sock, but she seemed unperturbed by that. Freeze to death? "A person from my village froze to death once," said the girl in a breathy voice. "I do not think he was sitting in front of a fan when he did."

The girl turned once more, back to pressing her face against the current of artificial wind, back to pretending the boy wasn't there. She scrunched up her face and closed her eyes, 'molasses' finding its way back onto her breath.

Declan finally looked up at the girl across the room with a confused and almost disgusted look on his face. She couldn't be serious. Sure people still froze to death but not in villages anymore, right? Emergency crews wouldn't let that happen so where did she come from? "Well, if you would be so kind as to at least turn one fan off, that'd be fantastic," he snapped, finally setting his phone down and crossing his arms over his chest. He hadn't even realized just how chilly it was getting until he had done so, feeling the contrast of heat radiating from where his arms had been tucked into his sides. "How did you even get three different fans in the first place?"

"Then it wouldn't be winter." Kaya didn't budge, save for the flaps of her clothing waving in the breeze. Her neck was rigid, as if she had no choice but to stay still. Like she was in the opportune spot, and moving an inch would ruin it. "They were in the closet. Molasses. It was open and it was ajar. Molasses." She put her sleeve to her mouth thoughtfully. Without a shiver or measure of discomfort, she announced: "I am cold."

As the girl continued speaking, Declan could only furrow his brow as a slight look of being weirded out covered his face. What was up with this girl wanting to stand in front of three fans that just happened to be in the closet while repeating some word. Was she saying molasses? He was just about to ask about her newfound fetish in the word "molasses" when she finally spoke up about being cold. In Declan's mind, she couldn't have looked more stupid. "Oh, now you're cold?!" He couldn't believe this girl. "If only there was a way to make it warmer in here... Oh wait!" the sarcasm dripped from his tongue like venom as he finally sat up from his spot on the couch.

It was at this time that Lenoir sidled into the lounge, after having spent eighty-seven seconds staring at the little plaque declaring what the room was. Clearly she was supposed to lounge in this room. Did she feel like lounging? It couldn't hurt. Well, it could. Maybe the roof would fall on her. That'd be interesting. Would the rest of the school fall with it, or was it more structurally sound?

When she walked in, she noticed two other people looking at each other: one guy, one girl in front of several gusting fans. Hey wait, that wasn't just any girl: that was Kaya! Her friend probably. Should she go say something? No: she was speaking to someone, it seemed. That would be rude. After, though. After.

It must've been the fans, because it was colder in the room than it had been outside. She hadn't brought her jacket: damn. That was silly, but how was she supposed to know? It was then that she realized she had been staring at the two people, so she averted her eyes and tried to make herself look less conspicuous. She skirted the big sofa and looked at the walls, pretending to be really fascinated by them. It was cold, but it wasn't snowing. She liked the snow, but not the cold that came with it. Virginia liked the cold, though. No matter how many times she admonished her friend for walking around in summer clothes in the middle of December, she would just laugh.

"I think turning to a stop the fans would help," Kaya did just that, flicking the switches on each, the room deadening to an eerie, obstructive silence, the air carrying morsels and specs of sounds from beyond the window and nothing more. After so long under the hum of the fans, it seemed peculiar. Nevertheless, Kaya didn't seem to mind. She flipped around and sat back with a sigh, not a negative one but a simple breath, and in this spotted a girl.

"Hey." There was the brightening of recognizance in her eyes, and she repeated again, "Hey, hey." Her small hands clutched the cushions she sat on. "It's you. You helped me when I was in fear of Arbor Banks. I remember you."

"Finally!" As soon as the fans were turned off, the air around him quickly stopped swirling around him and instantly became slightly warmer. It was a relief to stop shivering, but the spring didn't focus on it too long as another girl walked into the room and stared at the wall. What was up with these girls? Finally sitting up on the couch, he shifted away from the two uncomfortably. They both seemed to know each other which was nice. It kept him out of it. He didn't even recognize the name that Kaya had mentioned.

So she did recognize her. Hey, that was a good sign. That meant she wasn't completely forgettable. It was a good start. "Lenoir. My name, I mean. That's my name." She could remember the names of everyone that had talked to her: all two of them. "I remember you too, Kaya." Now her name would certainly be known. Okay, but now what?

"Was it not cold enough?" She pointed at the fans to drill the question home. There: that was a topical topic. And it meant they would have a conversation, and friends had conversations often, she was sure. She and Virginia did. Most of the time, anyway. A lot of the time. They used to.

"It was a perfect cold." Kaya smiled into her sleeve, cupped around the flowering of her lips. She planted her feet on the ground and looked over to the boy. "This is my friend Lenoir," she announced to him, as if he did not hear her introduce herself or as if he cared in the first place. He seemed too glued to his phone, too preoccupied. Kaya scooted over, not standing up once as she moved across the couch, kneeling tall and placing a small hand on Declan's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" She peered obtrusively at the screen.

"Too damn cold if you ask me..." Declan muttered under his breath before he realized that Kaya was talking to him. Looking up, blinking, he nodded towards Lenoir before going right back to the small device in his hands. All was well until the sounds of Kaya scooting towards him and a gentle hand resting on his should sent chills down his spine as he quickly grew that much more uncomfortable. "Um... excuse you," he jeered, giving her a snarky expression, but from what he had already figured out, there wasn't much that could move her. With a quick eye roll and a loud, hefty sigh, he looked back down at his phone. "Checking stuff. Seeing if there's anything going on in the school that can get me out of this room with a decent excuse."

Lenoir waved at the boy, though she wasn't given his name, and she didn't feel it was her place to ask. Now that he was talking with Kaya though, she wasn't sure what to do. She was there, so she should know what to do in this room, but she wasn't sure. Ahh, there was a tv though. Maybe she could watch that, though perhaps the noise would bother them. She could watch it without volume. That should be alright.

She went over to find the remote, and when she did, she picked it up and turned on the tv. Volume immediately came from it, but she muted it as fast as she could, hoping it hadn't bothered anyone. It was already tuned to the news, but she didn't know what else to watch, so she just read everything that was coming through on the screen crawl.