Minus a Thousand

translated by Mélissa Bull from Françoise Major

February night, minus twenty-eight degrees Celsius—they said on the radio minus thirty-seven with the wind chill. Rue Mentana, frost ridging my eyelashes, my nostrils, I head home, tracking through uncleared snow. Powder swirls through deserted streets. Body bent, head bowed, I struggle through flurries that singe my skin; neither my tuque nor my scarf protect my cheeks.

You can’t hear anything in the wind and snow. Just yourself and the winter. My heart races with every gust. I walk, drum pounding, deafened by my own pulse. The winter howls. Silences the rest.

The terrasses are non-existent. We gather in living rooms, around a candle and hot chocolates. Nights, everyone’s cold between their sheets.

Each exhalation weighs my scarf down with crystals. Snot spews from my nose; my fingers turn blue in their mittens. At the bend of two too-straight streets, wind rushes between buildings, charging at me. It’s suddenly minus a thousand and I’m nothing; only icy, breathless suffering.

But I still have to concentrate, scan for black ice. Or else I could slip.

I reach the wooden door, its paint cracking, and after jabbing at it five times, turn the lock with frozen fingers, then peel off four stiff layers of clothes and pull on flannel pyjamas quick. I swaddle myself in the duvet and wait for the trembling to stop, for my breathing to get less pained, less hoarse. I switch on the television because the remote isn’t far. I’m glad I’m safe in my warren. I don’t want the phone to ring. I don’t want to have to go outside. I don’t want to maybe die in a snowbank. I’ve forgotten how lilacs smell; I’ve forgotten uproarious laughter. After a slug of gin, I’ve forgotten my own name. I’m hibernating.

In the never dark dark, I am calm. In the three-and-a-half illuminated by snow beyond the windows, I wait.

From Françoise Major's short story collection Dans le noir jamais noir published by La Mèche, 2013.

ABOUT THE CREATOR

Mélissa Bull has published a poetry collection, Rue (2015), shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the Debut-litzer Award, and the Fred Kerner Award, and a short story collection, The Knockoff Eclipse (2018). Her translations include Nelly Arcan’s Burqa of Skin (2014), Pascale Rafie’s The Baklawa Recipe (2018), nominated for a META prize, and Marie-Sissi Labrèche’s Borderline (2020). Her translation of Maxime Raymond Bock’s Morel (2024) was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award. She is the editor of QC Fiction.

Françoise Major is a writer and translator. She is the author of two collections of short stories, Dans le noir jamais noir (La mèche, 2013; winner of the prix Adrienne-Choquette) and Le nombril de la lune (Le cheval d'août, 2018) as well as the libretto for À chaque ventre son monstre, an opera by Gabriel Dharmoo (Ensemble Paramirabo, 2018). An editor for XYZ magazine, Major directed their recent issue Écrivaines mexicaines actuelles (2024). She is also co-director of Quebecine, a Quebec film festival in Mexico.