Scared To Slip

Scared To Slip

There had been a weather warning. It had gone from the yellow “be aware” to the orange “be prepared”.

She was prepared.

As prepared as she could be.

Which probably wasn’t very prepared at all.

She had wrapped a lambs’ wool scarf around her neck, found a very unglamorous woolly hat and zipped up the warmest winter jacket she could find. With gloves on her hands and fur lined boots on her feet she was all set to go.

She opened the front door of the house and immediately the cold air hit her. It reminded her of one time when, as a child she had jumped into a swimming pool on holiday in France and had her breath taken away by the iciness of the water. This morning was almost as bad as that but not quite. She couldn’t help but shiver though.

With her bag over her shoulder she thrust her hands into her pockets and braced herself to walk on. She had no choice.

The stones of the short driveway were frozen underfoot. The shrubs had a liberal coating of white frost and the street itself, once she was out on it, was completely iced over.

“Oh great!” she thought, “Now to break a leg.”

Heather Warner was doing what she did every Sunday morning and virtually every other day of the week. The street where she lived wound its way down into the heart of the town via a footpath and some broad and uneven steps. Before those steps, the path led her through a little copse which Heather always approached with a certain amount of trepidation because of the number of rooks who found refuge there. It wasn’t their dark, hooded and leering looks or even their numbers that caused her unease so much as their toileting habits. She knew of people who only took that route with umbrellas fully extended and having, in the past, suffered at the hands of the rooks’ digestive systems herself, she held a certain amount of sympathy with the brolly brigade.

Today however she had her hat firmly set to cover her ears and to keep out the chill wind. And that would protect her from anything untoward from above too.

Nevertheless she hurried through that section of her walk and stood at top of the steps to gauge the slipperiness of the descent.

They were long rather than steep steps and wide enough to allow for a central handrail that began about two of those steps down. She knew that this morning she was going to need to hang on to something.

“Here goes,” she thought, as she extended a leg. The icy surface seemed to twinkle with delight at this early morning visitor and as her foot made contact with the step it went on sliding and Heather Warner did a Bambi on ice – only far less elegantly. In that split second Heather didn’t know if she had hurt herself or not and she didn’t care. All she felt was complete embarrassment – which meant she shot to her feet as quickly as she could whilst sending darting glances in the direction of the windows of the few houses that backed onto the steps.

Thankfully, no one appeared to have noticed. At least she couldn’t see anyone looking out. Her sigh of relief was visible. Highly visible thanks to the cloud it created in the cold air. She allowed herself a grimace and winced at the pain in her knee before she thought of moving again.

She negotiated the second step like an old woman and reached out to grab the handrail as if her life depended upon it.

Which she felt it did.

With two gloved hands grasping the rail tightly her shoulder bag swung round with such force that it nearly knocked her off her feet. She was too scared to let go to swing the bag out of the way again and so it stayed where it was, banging itself against her wounded knee with every teetering forward movement.

But so focussed was Heather on maintaining her grip so that the descent could continue that she was oblivious to the further damage that was being inflicted.

Her hat slipped down until it almost covered her eyes. She tried to blow the hair that came down with it out of the way but the icy damp meant that the hair was blowing nowhere.

She crept on, her cheeks reddening with a mixture of cold, concentration and effort.

She realised she was half crouching now, sub-consciously surmising that the nearer she was to the ground, the less distance there was to fall.

There were half a dozen steps left.

Heather continued to cling on, her bottom getting perilously close to engaging with the steps. “I wonder if it would be easier to sit and slide?” she thought but it took just a few seconds to realise that arriving on the main street in such unceremonious fashion was not really what would be considered “becoming” of a woman in her position.

Then her cheeks flushed once again as she wondered if the windows that had been free of life when she had been at the top of the steps were still so now. What a view people would be getting if they were looking out at this very minute! She didn’t dare look up knowing that she would die if her eyes met someone else’s. What on earth would they think if they could see her? She imagined the observer calling the rest of the family through to witness the humiliating sight and the youngsters having her perilous descent posted all over youtube before she reached the High Street.

Suddenly Heather wanted more than anything to be at the bottom of the steps. She took a deep breath and with her hands now extended upwards to grasp the rail that when she had started had been at waist height, she fed that rail hand over hand until it came to an end. That was when bottom and step finally connected. She stood up quickly, hoping no one had noticed and as she did, both feet, unprompted carried her on towards the gap that led to the main street.

Heather hands flailed. Her shoulder bag spun round and down her arm and then launched itself into the air at the same time as Heather herself executed the kind of spin any ice-skater would be proud of.

As the bag bounced off the security glass at the bank at the bottom of the steps, setting off the alarm, Heather slid out of control into the road and she uttered the only word she had uttered aloud so far that morning...

“Shiiiiit!”

The alarm had already turned the heads of the members of her congregation who were gathering at the door of her church for morning service.

Some smiled. Some pretended not to have heard.

Rev. Heather Warner gathered up her bag which had emptied over the street and put her sermon notes back in their folder.

As Jesus..... smiled?