Plow

In the cab of his plow, Thompson opened the bags of cheeseburgers he'd picked up the day before and unwrapped each one; he placed them in a shallow tub fitted to the passenger seat. Not normally one to overdress, Thompson had donned the fleece-lined balaclava he'd gotten for Christmas (thanks, Mom) with a wool scarf and half a second coat hanging off of that left side. When the window was open, the shit froze before it hit the fan, and that's the side that would be ... affected, engaged, most vulnerable. "171 about to head out," he called in (receiving the affirmative that he'd been heard). He'd seen two other plow guys in the drive-through; they said nothing to each other, but had nodded howdy do through a long wait that played memories all the way back to your first solo drive. Those faces in the snow were real - real and real common; those shapes moving white on white through blizzard conditions were real also. Thompson had looked at his boss with a full face of "you are putting me on" when he'd been told about the burger stipend, but he'd peed himself on County Road 59 when he was just sure something had knocked on the side of his plow while in motion. "They get hungry" was what he'd been told, and this was their element; turns out, there was an extra layer to public safety and plow drivers had to uphold that. "Stay awake, clear the roads," Thompson slowly repeated now (crossing himself), "and burger liberally or people will die." It wasn't the yellow snow you cared about on your route; it was the red.