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Calarogu Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly. This
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is the January Man, Episode one, the Cold Snap. The
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cold in Minneapolis isn't like cold anywhere else. I grew
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up in Virginia, where winter meant maybe a few inches
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of snow, maybe a week of temperatures in the twenties,
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maybe the novelty of scraping ice off your windshield before
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it melted by noon. That's not cold, that's winter cosplay.
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Minneapolis cold is different. Minneapolis cold is a presence. It
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settles into your bones in November and doesn't leave until April.
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It makes the air feel sharp, almost brittle, like you
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could snap it between your fingers. On the worst days,
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the days when the temperature drops below zero and the
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wind chill makes it feel like thirty below, the cold
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becomes a sound, a low, constant hum, like the city
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itself is holding its breath. I moved here five years ago.
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People think I'm crazy, a grief counselor from Richmond, Virginia,
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relocating to one of the coldest cities in the country.
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There are easier places to help people process loss, warmer places,
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places where January doesn't feel like a personal attack, but
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That's exactly why I came. My brother, THEO, died on
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New Year's Day five years ago hypothermia. He walked out
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of a party at two a m. In the middle
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of a cold snaping, nothing but a T shirt and jeans.
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They found him the next morning on a bridge over
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the James River. The coroner said he probably lost consciousness
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within twenty minutes. Said it would have been peaceful at
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the end, like falling asleep. I don't believe that. I
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don't believe anything about dying alone in the cold is peaceful.
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So I moved to Minneapolis, into the cold, because if
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I can survive the winters here, really survive them, not
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just endure them, then maybe I can survive the thing
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inside me that froze solid the day they told me
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THEO was gone. It's January fourth, temperature minus eight, wind
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chill minus twenty three. I'm standing at my office window
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watching the snow fall in that slow, deliberate way it
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does when it's too cold for wind. When I see
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him for the first time, he's standing on the corner
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across the street, perfectly still, watching my building. Dark coat,
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dark hair, pale face, no hat, no gloves, no scarf,
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just standing there in twenty three below wind chill, like
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it's a mild spring day. I blink and he's gone,
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not walked away, not ducked into a doorway, gone like
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he was never there at all, just an empty corner,
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snow falling where a man used to be. I press
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my palm against the cold glass and tell myself, I
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imagined it. I've been doing that a lot lately, telling
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myself I imagined things. Shadows in corners that move wrong,
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figures in snowstorms that disappear when I look directly at them,
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Presences I can almost feel, hovering at the edges of
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the bereaved when they sit in my office and weep.
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I became a grief counselor because I wanted to understand
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not just grief that I understood intimately, but the other thing,
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the sense I've had since childhood that there's something just
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past the edge of sight, something watching, something waiting. My
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phone buzzes a text from the front desk. Your two
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o'clock intake never showed. Marcus Chen want me to reschedule.
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I check the clock two forty seven. Marcus was supposed
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to be here almost an hour ago. I pull up
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his file on my computer. Marcus chen fifty two, referred
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by his primary care physician after a divorce finalized in November.
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Notes from the referring doctor patient presenting with severe depression
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a herdonia, passive suicidal ideation, declined medication, agreed to counseling
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as compromise passive suicidal ideation. That's the clinical term for
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when someone isn't actively planning to kill themse but wouldn't
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mind if they stopped existing. It's the gray zone, the
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dangerous zone, the place where people slip through the cracks
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because they're not in crisis enough to hospitalize, but not
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okay enough to leave alone. I grab my coat. The
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parking garage is six blocks from my office, which Marcus's
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file lists as his workplace address, a financial services firm
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on the eighth floor. I called ahead. The receptionist said
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he left for a personal appointment at one thirty and
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never came back. His car is a silver Lexus parked
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on the third level of the garage. The engine is running,
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the windows are fogged, and there's a piece of cardboard
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wedged under the garage door, blocking the gap where outside
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air would normally flow in. I run Marcus I bang
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on the driver's window, but I can't see through the condensation. Marcus,
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can you hear me? No response, The engine hums. The
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exhaust curls white in the frozen air of the garage,
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but not as much of it is escaping as should be.
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The cardboard is doing its job, sealing him in with
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the carbon monoxide. I try the door handle, locked. Of
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course it's locked. I need to call nine one one,
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I say, fumbling for my phone with numb fingers. I
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need to he won't answer. The voice comes from behind me,
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and I spin around, heart pounding. It's him, the man
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from the corner, standing three feet away in the gray
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light of the parking garage, still wearing nothing but that
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dark coat, still unbothered by cold that should be killing him.
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Who are you? I demand? How did you? He's been
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sitting there for forty seven minutes. The man steps closer,
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and I notice his eyes pale blue, almost gray, like
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ice over deep water. He sealed the gap at one
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point fifty two. He's been breathing carbon monoxide ever since. Then.
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Help me get him out. I can't touch the car,
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I can't touch him. The man's voice is calm, but
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there's something underneath it. Frustration maybe, or grief, but you
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can The door's locked. The back window driver's side. It's cracked,
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not much, but enough, he points, Push it down, reach through,
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unlock the door manually. I don't ask how he knows this.
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I don't ask why he's here, or what he wants,
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or how he disappeared from that corner, like smoke in
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the wind. I just move. The back window is cracked
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barely an inch. I shove my hand against it, and
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the frozen rubber seal protests, then gives. The glass slides
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down and I reach through, stretching until my shoulder screams,
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until my fingers find the lock mechanism on the front door. Click.
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I yank the door open, and the fog pours out,
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and Marcus Chin is slumped against the steering wheel, unconscious,
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skin the color of raw. DOAUX help me, I gasp,
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grabbing his shoulders, Help me pull him out. I told
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you I can't touch him, Then what good are you?
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I drag Marcus out of the car, myself, his dead
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weight nearly pulling me down with him. He's breathing, shallow, ragged,
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but breathing. I lay him on the concrete floor of
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the garage and call nine one one with shaking hands.
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The man in the dark coat watches the whole time.
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He doesn't move, doesn't offer comfort, just watches with those
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pale eyes, like he's seen this a thousand times before.
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When the ambulance arrives, the paramedics push past him like
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he isn't there, because he isn't not to them. I
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watch one of them walk directly through the space where
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he's standing, and he doesn't flinch, doesn't move, just reforms
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around the interruption, like water flowing past a stone. You
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can see me, he says quietly, as they load Marcus
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onto a stretcher. You actually see me. What are you?
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He's silent for a long moment. The ambulance doors close,
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the sirens start up, fading as they pull away. My
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name is Callum, he finally says, and I've been waiting
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a very long time for someone like you. We walk.
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It's too cold to walk, too cold for anything, really,
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but Callum doesn't seem to notice, and I'm too wired
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with adrenaline to care. The streets are mostly empty, everyone
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huddled inside. When our footsteps crunch in the packed snow.
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As he talks, I'm a winter walker, he says, one
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of the last. I think we exist in the cold,
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the deep cold, the killing cold. When the temperature drops
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past a certain point, we become present, visible, real enough
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to interact with the world, real enough to talk to me,
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but not real enough to open a car door. The
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rules are complicated, He almost smiles. I can affect air temperature,
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the feeling of a space. I can reach people emotionally,
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give them a sense of warmth, of presence, of not
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being alone. But I can't touch physical objects, can't move things,
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can't save people with my hands. The almost smile fades
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only with whatever's left of my soul. And that's what
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you do. Save people, guide them. There's a difference. He
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stops walking, turns to face me. The cold has turned
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his breath to fog, which seems wrong somehow, shouldn't he
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be part of the cold, not affected by it. January
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is when people break the holiday's end. The darkness sets in,
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the weight of another year becomes unbearable. Every January, people
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get lost. They wander into the cold literally metaphorically, and
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they can't find their way back. Like Marcus, Like Marcus,
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like dozens of others. Every winter in this city alone.
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His eyes meet mine. I walk the cold days, I
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find the lost ones, I guide them back if I can.
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It's what I was made for, made by who, something old,
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something that lives in the space between the first freeze
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and the last thaw. He starts walking again, and I
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fall into step beside him. I was a man once,
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eighteen forty seven, Scottish immigrant, trying to make a life
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in this god forsaken frozen territory. My daughter got sick,
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scarlet fever, and I walked into a blizzard to find
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a doctor. What happened, I died, He says, It's simply
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like it's a fact about someone else froze to death
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about two miles from town. But I didn't stop walking.
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I couldn't. Margaret was sick and I had to save her,
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and the cold couldn't have me until I did. Did
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she survive? Yes? Something shifts in his voice, softer, sadder.
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Something in the blizzard saw what I was doing, the desperation,
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the refusal to stop, and it offered me a deal.
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Walk the winters forever, guide the lost one's home, and
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Margaret would live. So I said, yes, we've reached the river,
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the Mississippi frozen solid, stretching white and silent under the
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gray January sky. That was almost one hundred eighty years ago.
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Callum says, I've walked every winter since, watched Margaret grow up,
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grow old, die surrounded by her grandchildren. Watched the city
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change around me, watched the winters get shorter, warmer, less real.
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He turns to look at me, and I've never, not,
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once in all that time, met someone who could see
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me when I wasn't trying to be seen. What does
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that mean? It means you're a witness, someone who can
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perceive things that exist outside normal time. He studies my face.
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You've seen other things, haven't you, Shadows that move wrong,
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figures in storms. I don't answer. I don't have to.
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The lost ones can feel me, and I guide them.
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Callum continues, A warmth, a presence, But they can't see me,
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can't hear me, can't know I'm there. He pauses, You're different.
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You saw me on that corner from your window. You
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saw me in the garage. You're seeing me now, not
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because I'm reaching for you, but because you're built to
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perceive things like me, things like you. Winter walkers, threshold spirits,
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the beings, that exist in the spaces between. He holds
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out his hand, palm up like an offering. I can
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touch you. Do you understand how impossible that is. I
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haven't touched another living person since eighteen forty seven. I
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look at his hand, long, fingers, pale as snow, perfectly still.
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I shouldn't touch him. Every rational part of my brain
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is screaming that this is insane, that I'm having some
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kind of breakdown, that grief counselors who see ghosts in
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parking garages need grief counselors of their own. But I
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reach out anyway. His skin is cold, of course, it's cold,
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but it's solid, real present. I can feel the bones beneath,
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the texture of his palm, the faint tremor that runs
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through him at the contact. Oh, he breathes, Oh, that's
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He flickers like a candle in a draft. His whole
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form wavers, becomes translucent, then solid again. He pulls his
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hand back, pressing it to his chest, like I burned him.
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What's wrong? The temperature? He looks at the sky. It's
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rising thirty one degrees by morning. The forecasts say above freezing.
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And when it's above freezing, I fade He meets my eyes,
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and for the first time I see fear in them.
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I've been fading for years. The winters are getting warmer,
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the deep cold comes less often, stays for shorter stretches.
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Every January, I have fewer days to exist. How many
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days do you have now? He's silent for a moment.
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The wind picks up and I shiver, but he doesn't move.
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I don't know. He finally says, a week, maybe maybe less.
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He looks at me with those pale eyes, and I
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see something else beneath the fear. Hope, desperate, fragile hope.
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But you can see me, you can touch me. In
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one hundred eighty years, I've never met anyone who could
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do both. What does that mean for you? I don't know.
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He flickers again, fainter this time, But I think I
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think you might be the only one who can help me.
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Whatever happens next, the cold is deepening around us, the
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temperature dropping as the sun sets. Callum solidifies, becomes more present.
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But there's still that waver at his edges, that uncertainty.
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Will you help me, vera? He asks? Will you walk
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with me? While I still have days left to walk?
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I think about Marcus Chen, unconscious on a stretcher. I
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think about my brother Theo, walking into the cold five
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years ago. I think about all the people who get
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lost in January, who wander into the dark and don't
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find their way back. And I think about this man,
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this impossible, ancient, fading man, who has spent nearly two
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centuries guiding them home. Yes, I say, I'll help you.