Misunderstood

Word of the Day Tuesday, February 02, 2010

gelid

\JEL-id\ , adjective;

1. Extremely cold; icy.

She pulled her wool over-coat tighter around her chest and continued walking toward the river, her head down and shoulders hunched, tucked in against the gelid night air. It was eerily quiet. It was too cold out for animals or even insects. No one but herself was out walking, and the evening traffic had deserted the precariously slippery roads.

Her step-mother had yelled at her to come back into the house when she had stormed out, telling her that it was too cold to be out. She had been so full of hot headed rage that she didn't think she would mind the cold one bit.

The full moon lit the empty world just for her with chrome light and she flung her seething anger over the sparkling landscape with each crack of her heel.

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The river was inky black and still gushing in a violent torrent. Ice had formed at the edges of the bank but the continuous flow of the river had been too vigorous to quell.

She leaned morosely on the railing of the bridge over the river and stared down into the space below her. She found that the frigid air had in fact cooled down her temper and she now wished that she had thought to grab her gloves on the way out of the house. Of course, now that she wasn't reacting with her hair trigger temper she decided that the reality of the situation was that she had never felt so alone and misunderstood in her life.

She cleared her throat and spat into the river, wanting to see a part of herself be swallowed by the river, and then turned around and carefully made her way back toward the house along the ice incrusted street.