A chance meeting while waiting for a Prague tram and the gift of an ‘almost sister’… a seasonal short story by the prize-winning novelist
Winter: Each time you step outdoors your toes curl – well, they try to – and you hiss into your scarf. The temperature’s like a shock and awe manoeuvre; it stupefies. Morning after morning either I or the lady at the newspaper kiosk make the announcement, “This is it, it’s the coldest day of the year, it can’t get any colder than this”, before bursting out into bitter laughter at the naivety of having had exactly the same thought the day before…
I found myself at a tram stop very late one wintry night. I’d just attended one of those “unofficial” gatherings that generate bad feeling if missed too frequently. The others were enjoying themselves, as far as I could tell, but I kept wondering why such gatherings seem to be the only way to bond, or earn trust, or whatever it is these gatherings are about. Can’t we change that? Off the clock chit-chat is too much… work. I’d rather just make blood pacts and sort things out in court if the pacts are broken.