The Stroke of Winter

by Wendy Webb

Why did a sense of unease wash over her every time she thought about that project?

Build up is coming across as repetition.

That was how all his paintings were—an otherwise utterly normal moment, with otherworldly danger lurking just out of view.

History hung in the air in those types of basements.

A man who saw beauty in the lake’s fury, and suspicion in the lake’s calmness.

It was almost as if, the nearer people are to the other side, whether they’ve just come into the world or are close to leaving it, the more sleep they need. And she wondered, too, if it was really sleep at all. If it wasn’t simply their way of touching what was behind the veil. Infants reaching back to where they had been. Seniors reaching forward to where they were soon going.

But in the end, truth scratches its way out of the deepest, darkest of holes.