The Stasis of Iron and Ice

Stranded in the Winnipeg train station amidst a brutal winter storm, three cousins—Ori, Sylvestre, and Brenda—grapple with the absurdity of a decades-long train delay, dwindling patience, and the looming spectre of a missed family Christmas, all while navigating the peculiar ecosystem of fellow stranded travellers.

“Twenty-six hours,” Ori stated, the words flat and dull, like coins dropped onto concrete. She didn’t look up from her phone, but Sylvestre saw the knuckles on her hand, gripping the device, were white. Her voice was too calm, a sure sign that the internal combustion was nearing critical mass. He nudged a discarded Tim Hortons cup with his foot. It rolled listlessly, collecting dust bunnies.

“Could be worse,” Sylvestre offered, because someone had to. Brenda, perched on the floor with her sketchbook propped against her knees, only grunted. Her charcoal stick scraped softly against the paper, a counterpoint to the station’s low drone. “We could be… out there.” He gestured vaguely towards the blizzard-whipped windows, which now served as a dynamic, terrifying backdrop.

“Out there, we’d freeze,” Ori corrected, her tone still unnervingly level. “In here, we’re just… wilting. Like forgotten grocery produce. At a hundred dollars a ticket, no less.” She finally lifted her head, her gaze sweeping over the rows of slumped shoulders, makeshift bedrolls, and the general air of beleaguered resignation. “They said 'unforeseen weather conditions.' They knew this storm was coming yesterday. I checked the forecast. You check the forecast for a reason, you know? It’s not a suggestion.”

Sylvestre sighed, a sound that disappeared into the ambient chatter and the periodic, distorted announcements crackling over the loudspeakers. “Maybe they thought it’d blow over. Prairie blizzards can be fickle.”

Brenda finally spoke, her voice soft but clear. “The big old diesel engine isn’t going to just ‘blow over’ a metre of snow, Sylvestre. And the rails… they’d be frozen solid. They’re just waiting for the plows.” She dabbed at her sketch, adding a stark shadow to the face of a man sleeping upright, his head lolling precariously.

Ori scrubbed a hand over her face. “Okay, so rational thinking confirms we’re utterly screwed. Great. Anyone got a spare charger? My phone’s at five percent and I need to email Professor Dubois about extending that deadline. Apparently, ‘my train is older than most of North America and stuck in a snowdrift’ isn’t a valid excuse.”

Sylvestre rummaged in his backpack. “Uh, mine’s at eight percent. And my portable brick is… dead. Did you not charge yours last night, Ori?” He tried to sound innocent, but the guilt was clear on his face. He’d probably used it all playing some ridiculous mobile game.

Ori glared, a slow burn igniting in her eyes. “No, Sylvestre, I spent my night trying to figure out if our cousin, whose parents are inexplicably hosting Christmas in *Saskatoon* this year, would actually manage to get us there before New Year’s. My focus was on existential dread, not charging electronics.”

---

### The Slow Decay of Comfort

Hours blurred into an indistinguishable mass. The digital clock above the information desk, a merciless red glow, ticked on, marking the relentless passage of time without any progress. The station staff, a revolving door of increasingly weary faces, offered only variations of “We’ll update you when we know more,” which everyone understood to mean “We know nothing, and neither do you.”

Sylvestre, ever the explorer, had made three circuits of the station. He’d discovered a vending machine that reliably dispensed lukewarm ginger ale, a forgotten hat that looked suspiciously like Uncle Geoff’s, and a pair of elderly sisters who were calmly knitting matching scarves, seemingly impervious to the chaos. He’d even attempted to strike up a conversation with them, but they’d only blinked at him with serene indifference before returning to their purling.

“The scarf ladies,” he reported back to Ori and Brenda, who were now sharing a single, slightly sticky power outlet with three other people. “They’re like… zen masters of train delays. They’ve been here since yesterday morning, apparently.”

Ori grunted, tapping furiously at her phone. “Good for them. I’m currently at eighty-seven percent rage, thirteen percent low battery anxiety, and zero percent zen. This paper is due, and I’m going to fail because a snowdrift decided to have a leisurely nap on the tracks.”

Brenda, her head tilted, observed a young family trying to build a fort out of their luggage. A small child, no older than four, was currently attempting to scale a mountain of duffel bags. “It’s kind of beautiful, in a desperate sort of way,” she mused, sketching the scene with rapid strokes. “Everyone just… adapts. They find their own ways to cope with the absurdity.”

“Adapting means I’m going to be stuck here for Christmas,” Ori muttered, her fingers flying across the tiny keyboard. “Which means Grandma is going to deploy ‘The Look.’ The one that says, ‘You promised, Ori. You promised you’d be here for the turkey, and now look what you’ve done.’”

Sylvestre chuckled, a hollow sound. “Yeah, my mom’s probably already in full panic mode. Twenty-six hours! She’ll think we’ve been eaten by a yeti. Or worse, converted to the cult of the scarf ladies.” He shivered. “They were really quiet. Like, unnervingly quiet.”

---

The evening brought a shift in the station’s atmosphere. The initial frantic energy had given way to a dull, grinding weariness. People huddled closer, sharing snacks, stories, and the occasional grumble. The scent of coffee was now mixed with a vague, communal body odour and the sweet, cloying aroma of desperation. Ori had finally given up on her paper, her phone dead, and was now staring blankly at the swirling snow outside. Sylvestre was trying to teach Brenda a complex card trick, fumbling the cards repeatedly.

“No, no, the eight of clubs goes *under* the queen, not next to it. You’ll ruin the entire… the entire illusion, Brenda.” Sylvestre’s voice was thin with exhaustion. Brenda, for her part, was attempting to humour him, but her eyes kept drifting back to the people around them.

“It’s okay, Sylvestre,” she said, her voice gentle. “It’s a good trick. I just… my brain feels like it’s full of cotton wool.”

Ori stirred. “My brain feels like it’s been repeatedly hit with a shovel. Then frozen. Then thawed. Then hit again.” She finally looked at them, a small, tired smile playing on her lips. “Grandma’s going to be so disappointed. I was supposed to carve the turkey this year. It’s my year.” She looked genuinely mournful, and Sylvestre felt a pang of sympathy.

“We’ll get there,” Sylvestre said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “Eventually. Even if it’s for New Year’s turkey. I bet Grandma won’t mind a New Year’s turkey.”

“She will,” Ori said without hesitation. “It’s about tradition. And the specific *day*. Christmas turkey, Christmas carols, Christmas arguments about who gets the last piece of pie.” She sighed, a deep, rattling sound. “It’s the only time we all actually sit at the same table without someone having an urgent prior engagement.”

Brenda laid down her sketchbook. The light was too poor for drawing now anyway. “Remember that year Uncle Patrick almost set the kitchen on fire trying to deep-fry a turkey? Mom still brings that up every year, like it’s a cautionary tale from the Bible.”

Sylvestre laughed, a genuine, albeit weary, laugh. “And Cousin Liam swore it was delicious, even though half of it was raw and the other half was charred beyond recognition.”

Ori’s lips twitched. “He was trying to be polite. He ate the uncharred parts with a grimace. I saw him. He kept eyeing the fire extinguisher.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, memories of chaotic Christmases past forming a strange, warm comfort in the frigid, fluorescent-lit waiting room. It was true, their family Christmases were always a bit of a disaster, but they were *their* disasters. The thought of missing it, of their absence creating a gap in the familiar chaos, was a bitter pill.

A fresh layer of snow had built up against the bottom of the windowpane, blurring the line between the inside and the relentless outside. It was a thick, impenetrable barrier. No one was going anywhere soon. The collective energy of the room had shifted from expectation to something akin to acceptance, a heavy, quiet resignation.

Ori leaned her head back against the cold, hard wall, her eyes fluttering closed. Sylvestre had given up on his card tricks and was now scrolling through old photos on his phone, a wistful expression on his face. Brenda just watched the snow, a silent, swirling world beyond the glass. The thought of home, of the familiar, messy warmth of their family, felt impossibly distant, a fading signal lost in the vast, white static of the storm.

The station hummed on, a mechanical breath in the belly of the indifferent winter. They were marooned, together and alone, in the transient space between here and somewhere else, and the thought of breaking free seemed as improbable as the train actually arriving.