Agnes MacLaughlin, a woman whose winter coat had seen more blizzards than most meteorologists, jammed her elbow into what she hoped was Charles's ribcage. 'You said it would be fine, Charles. You said a little snow was nothing for a train.' Her voice, usually a warm rumble, had acquired the brittle edge of frozen shortbread.
Charles, half-buried under a rucksack and a plaid blanket that smelled faintly of campfire, mumbled, 'It's a *lot* of snow, Mum. Not just a 'little'. And trains, you know, they're not invincible. Not like you, eh?' He winked, a gesture lost in the dim, overpacked waiting area of the Winnipeg station. The air hung thick, warm, and vaguely metallic, like something forgotten in an old tin box. Agnes felt a loose thread on her glove. Picked at it.
Brenda, her sister, stood rigid by the departure board, a hand pressed against her forehead like a prophet contemplating doom. The screen, a constellation of red delays, gleamed with an almost malicious cheer. 'Dozens of hours, Mum. Not 'a little late.' *Dozens*. This isn't just a hiccup. This is… this is a holiday massacre!' She whipped around, her eyes wide, scanning the sea of similarly distraught faces.
Daisy, Brenda’s daughter, already slumped against a pilaster, her phone glowing like a tiny, dying star, let out a noise somewhere between a whine and a groan. 'No signal. This is a nightmare. I can't even get on the wi-fi, it keeps booting me off. Are we going to die here?' Her voice cracked, more a statement of extreme inconvenience than genuine fear.
Agnes sighed, a long, gusty exhalation that misted in the overheated air. 'Nobody's dying, Daisy. We're just… delayed.' She looked around, the terminal a grotesque tableau of modern patience. People hunched over phones, kids sprawled on luggage, a few hardy souls attempting to play cards on a surprisingly stable cooler. She spotted an empty row of plastic seats near a forgotten potted plant. 'Right. Operation: Secure Base Camp.'
The Unforgiving Hum of the Station
Navigating the crowd was like swimming upstream in a river of festive despair. Every glance met with an equally desperate, or worse, aggressively optimistic, stare. Agnes tugged Charles by the sleeve. 'Don't just stand there gawking, Charles. Help your mother. And where's that extra blanket? My feet are still tingling from the taxi.'
Charles, ever the reluctant hero, shuffled after her, kicking at an errant crisp packet. 'My feet are tingling from having to carry your… your 'essentials' bag, Mum. How much fudge did you pack?'
Brenda, already ahead, had staked their claim on the plastic seats with the ferocity of a seasoned explorer planting a flag. 'Here! Quick! Before someone else decides it's their manifest destiny!' she hissed, wiping down the already clean seats with a pre-moistened towelette.
Daisy, after a dramatic flounce, collapsed onto the seat, instantly attempting to revive her phone. 'Still nothing. This is inhumane. This is worse than that time you made me go camping without a charger.' She glared at her mother, who was meticulously arranging a small bottle of hand sanitiser and a packet of digestive biscuits.
Agnes settled with a groan, her knees protesting the sudden effort. 'Camping builds character, Daisy. And character is what we'll need for 'dozens of hours.' She looked at Brenda, whose face was slowly turning the colour of an overripe plum. 'Brenda, love, breathe. It's not the end of the world.'
Brenda took a ragged breath. 'It feels like it, Mum! Dad's expecting us by dinnertime tomorrow! The turkey's thawing! What about the cranberry sauce? Did you remember the cranberry sauce, Charles?'
Charles, already halfway through a packet of crisps he'd magically produced, offered a shrug. 'What's the difference? We're not getting there, are we? Might as well enjoy the salt and vinegar.' He crumpled the packet loudly, drawing a withering look from a woman with a large, agitated parrot in a travel cage nearby.
The Great Station Provision Scramble
As the hours bled into one another, the initial shock gave way to a dull, gnawing hunger. The station's only Tim Hortons, usually an oasis of Canadian comfort, had been picked clean like a particularly aggressive vulture. Agnes dispatched Charles on a reconnaissance mission. 'See what you can find. Anything. Even those little foil-wrapped sandwiches. I saw a man with one. A tuna, I think.'
Charles returned, defeated, about twenty minutes later, smelling vaguely of stale doughnuts and despair. 'Nothing. Absolute famine, Mum. There was a riot over the last apple fritter. Seriously. A proper tussle.'
Daisy, whose attempts to stream a show had completely failed, was now gnawing on her fingernail. 'I'm starving. I saw a vending machine, but it only had those weird kale chips. And the pop button was jammed.'
Brenda, who had been pacing a small, worn circle beside their 'base camp,' suddenly stopped. 'Right. That's it. We need a strategy. We can't just sit here and… oxidise. Charles, you check the lower level for forgotten kiosks. Daisy, conserve your battery, maybe write a journal. Mum, you… supervise.' She pointed vaguely, then winced as her phone finally gave up the ghost.
Agnes observed the general decline with a weary amusement. Her children, so capable in their own lives, reverted to squabbling siblings under pressure. It was, she realised, part of the family saga. A recurring motif. Like that time Charles accidentally glued his hand to the Christmas turkey. Or Brenda convinced everyone a fruitcake was 'edible' for her art project.
Later, much later, after a rather uninspired game of 'I Spy' that Daisy declared 'infra-dig' and Brenda insisted on winning, a man from a few seats over, a portly fellow named Gerald with a surprisingly robust moustache, offered them half a stale banana bread. 'Saved it for emergencies,' he'd explained, his voice thick with a Manitoba accent. 'This definitely qualifies.'
Agnes accepted it graciously. 'You're a lifesaver, Gerald. We MacLaughlin's are practically chewing the upholstery.' She tore off a piece, handing it to Daisy, whose eyes lit up with unexpected gratitude.
Charles, ever the opportunist, leaned over. 'Any chance of a spare packet of crisps, Gerald? Or perhaps a… a small, emergency miniature bottle of something warming?'
Gerald chuckled, a deep rumble that shook his ample belly. 'Sorry, son. Just the banana bread. And a slightly bruised apple. But that's for sentimental reasons.'
The Slow Unraveling of Festivity
The temperature in the station felt like it was slowly dropping, or maybe it was just the collective spirit. The grand clock above the main entrance seemed to tick with a mocking slowness. Hours stretched, became indistinguishable. Children, once boisterous, had settled into a weary, grumbling truce with their parents. One particularly determined group had started a sing-along, which quickly degenerated into a mournful rendition of 'O Canada' and then 'Jingle Bells' sung with more irony than joy.
Brenda had managed to find a charging port, but it was occupied by a woman aggressively guarding it like a dragon protecting its hoard. 'Honestly, the selfishness,' Brenda muttered, pulling her coat tighter. 'It's like the apocalypse started and nobody told us to stock up on USB cables.'
Daisy, in a rare moment of introspection not driven by social media, looked out at the ceaseless snow. It felt like the world was being scrubbed clean, the old year wiped away before the new one could begin. But not in a good way. More like erasure.
Agnes watched her granddaughter. So much nervous energy, so much unspoken anxiety under the surface. They were all on edge. The promise of Christmas, the warmth of home, felt impossibly distant, a mirage shimmering just out of reach in the blizzard-swept prairie.
Charles, after a long silence, pulled out his phone. 'Hey, Mum, remember that time Dad tried to build an igloo in the backyard and it collapsed on him?'
Agnes snorted. 'Of course. Your father was convinced it was 'traditional'. Spent three hours with a gardening spade, only for the entire thing to cave in, pinning him under a ton of snow. Your Uncle Robert had to dig him out. Said he looked like a frozen potato.'
Daisy actually let out a small, genuine laugh. Brenda, even, managed a tight smile. For a moment, the heavy cloak of delay lifted, replaced by the faint, shared warmth of a familial memory. The absurdity of their past mistakes, and their current predicament, seemed to blend into a single, gently humorous narrative.
But then the loudspeaker crackled. A voice, tinny and devoid of empathy, announced, 'Attention passengers for Via Rail Train 692 to Churchill. We regret to inform you that due to continued severe weather conditions across Northern Manitoba, and an unforeseen mechanical issue now compounding the delay, the estimated departure time has been reassessed. We now anticipate an additional delay of approximately thirty-six to forty-eight hours. Further updates will be provided as information becomes available.'
The announcement hung in the air, a final, definitive pronouncement of festive doom. Brenda's jaw went slack. Charles choked on a piece of banana bread. Daisy simply stared at her mother, her eyes wide, a single, fat tear finally tracing a path down her cold cheek. Agnes closed her eyes, a sharp, bitter wave washing over her. Forty-eight hours. Two more days. Two more nights. Christmas was officially a hostage to the prairie winter.
Then, the tinny voice returned, 'Passengers are advised to seek alternative accommodation if possible.'
Agnes opened her eyes. 'Alternative accommodation,' she repeated, a humourless laugh escaping her lips. 'In Winnipeg? On Christmas Eve Eve? Oh, this is going to be good. Truly, truly good.'
An Unexpected Comfort
The collective groan from the terminal was almost physical. People started gathering their things, a slow, deflated exodus towards the information desk, where two harried staff members looked ready to weep. Brenda, however, had gone completely silent. Her face was pale, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.
Daisy, still silently crying, leaned her head against Agnes's shoulder. Agnes stroked her hair, the soft strands a small comfort in the suddenly amplified chaos. Charles, for once, didn't crack a joke. He just sat, staring at the floor, occasionally kicking at the crisp packet he'd dropped earlier.
Agnes watched the woman with the parrot in the cage slowly cover it with a cloth. Even the parrot seemed to understand. Christmas, it seemed, was going to be spent in the echoing, stale-aired embrace of the Winnipeg train station. And somehow, she thought, in the sheer, bewildering absurdity of it all, there was a strange, undeniable, family truth unfolding.
She thought of her father, always saying that adversity built character. Perhaps it also built a stronger, if slightly more exasperated, family bond. She looked at her children, her granddaughter. All the exasperation, the petty squabbles, the frustration… it was all part of their fabric. And now, they were woven tighter than ever, stranded together, in the heart of a frozen continent.
Brenda finally spoke, her voice a reedy whisper. 'What are we going to do, Mum?'
Agnes pulled her closer, a rare, tender gesture. 'We're going to survive, love. We always do. And we're going to make sure this is a Christmas we never, ever forget. For better or for worse.' She gave Charles a pointed look. 'Probably worse, knowing this lot.' A small, choked laugh escaped Brenda. Daisy, too, managed a teary smile. The station hummed on, a vast, indifferent beast, but for a moment, a tiny bubble of MacLaughlin resilience formed, defying the prairie chill.
Just then, a small, red-faced man in a Santa hat, who had been attempting to play a harmonica for the past hour, finally managed to hit a recognisable note. A shaky, slightly off-key rendition of 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' began to fill the air, a defiant, if slightly ridiculous, anthem in the face of their collective misfortune.
Agnes leaned back, a faint smile touching her lips. 'Well,' she said, loud enough for her family to hear over the harmonica. 'At least we'll have stories. And maybe, if we're lucky, someone will figure out how to make a decent cup of tea in this place.'