Danilo
The ice talked to me when I hit it.
It wasn't cracking, it was talking, that low, deep, living groan you only get from real winter ice, the kind that had been freezing for months and was thick all the way down to the black. I hit it again with the heavy hammer I'd grabbed from the shed, not the shovel, because the shovel was for pushing snow and the hammer was for telling the truth.
Thunk.
It was solid underneath where I'd cleared the snow, solid as concrete, black and clear and thick enough to hold a truck.
Thunk.
I moved five feet to the left and hit it again, listening for any hollow sound, any whine that would tell me it was thin.
Thunk.
Another five feet, another hit, my breath coming out in big white clouds that vanished instantly in air so cold it burned the inside of my nose. Minus fifteen, maybe minus twenty, the kind of cold that made my puffer feel too hot at my back where I was sweating from work.
