The prairie doesn’t just blow wind; it screams. When you live on the edge of the great emptiness like we do in Fergus Falls, a sixty-mile-per-hour wind isn’t weather, it’s a physical assault. It hits the side of the house like a freight train made of ice, making the windows flex and the vinyl siding groan in a way that makes you question the structural integrity of everything you own. The rat terriers are smart enough to know that outside is currently a death sentence; they have burrowed so deep under the duvet that they have become lump-shaped fossils, refusing to acknowledge the apocalypse happening beyond the glass.
I should be there with them. I should be asleep. But I have a head cold that feels like someone poured quick-dry concrete into my sinuses, and I am out of the good stuff. I need the DayQuil. The orange nectar of the gods. And unfortunately, the only thing standing between me and sinus relief is three miles of whiteout conditions and a parking lot that has likely turned into a frozen demolition derby.
Going to Walmart in a blizzard is not an errand; it is a tactical deployment. I layer up like I’m preparing for a blackened ops mission in the Arctic Circle. Thermal base layer. Hoodie. The heavy Carhartt jacket that smells like two-stroke smoke and resilience. I pull on the muck boots and catch a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror—I look like a crab fisherman prepared to die at sea, but I am just going to buy decongestants next to the dairy section.
I step out the side door and the wind immediately tries to strip the skin off my face. It’s a total whiteout. You can’t see the street. You can’t see the neighbor’s house. You can only see the swirling, hypnotic void of snow moving horizontally at highway speeds. I climb into the 2010 RAV4, my trusty steed. She starts with a groan, complaining about the negative windchill, but she turns over. Toyotas are like cockroaches; they will survive the end of the world, provided you change the oil occasionally.
I back out of the driveway by feel. I can’t see the snowbanks, but I can feel when the tires hit the resistance, bouncing me back toward the center. Driving in a whiteout is a spiritual experience. The world is gone. There is no horizon. There is no sky. There is only the five feet of illuminated snow directly in front of your bumper. The wind hits the RAV4 broadside, shoving the car two feet to the left, and I have to counter-steer, surfing the ice rather than driving on it. I’m doing fifteen miles per hour, but it feels like reentry speed. I pass other vehicles that look like ghost ships in the fog—a lifted pickup truck in the ditch with hazard lights blinking like a distress beacon, a sedan spinning its wheels in futility. I offer a silent prayer to the gods of All-Wheel Drive and keep moving.
The Walmart parking lot in a blizzard is a lawless state. The painted lines are gone, the cart corrals are buried, and civilization has broken down. People just abandon their cars wherever momentum stops them, creating a chaotic labyrinth of frozen steel. I park the RAV4 at a forty-five-degree angle near the entrance and fight the wind to open the door—it takes two hands just to push it against the gale. I stumble toward the automatic doors like a survivor in a disaster movie reaching sanctuary.
The doors slide open, and the wind howls one last time before being cut off by the hum of fluorescent lights and the smell of popcorn chicken and wet floor mats. Inside, it’s a different world. It’s bright. It’s dry. And it is filled with the other brave souls of Fergus Falls who risked their lives for essentials. We nod to each other—the universal “Midwest Nod.” It says: You out in this? Yeah, out in this. Good luck.
I navigate to the pharmacy aisle. It’s been raided, a victim of the pre-storm panic buying, but there, in the back, sitting like the Holy Grail, is the twin-pack: DayQuil and NyQuil. The Alpha and the Omega. The waker and the sleeper. I grab it and clutch it to my chest like a prize. The checkout is fast because nobody wants to chat; the cashier looks tired, and when she asks if I have a rewards card, I tell her my reward is making it home alive. She doesn’t laugh, but I think I see a glimmer of understanding.
I brace myself at the exit, zipping the Carhartt to the chin and pulling the hood tight. The doors open, and the prairie screams again. The walk back to the RAV4 is a battle against gravity, the wind trying to knock me over with every step, the snow blinding me instantly. But I have the package. I have the cure. I throw the bag in the passenger seat, climb in, and slam the door against the storm. The silence of the cabin returns, and I wipe the ice from my eyebrows. The RAV4 roars to life for the return trip. Seven blocks to go. The dogs are waiting. The DayQuil is waiting. Let it blow. I’ve got the medicine.
Leave a Reply