This is a response to the Muse on Monday prompt for February 2, 2026: Write a story where cold weather is the antagonist.

The Forces of Gale

I opened the front door and stopped, frozen. This was not the world I was used to. The air was not warm, not warm at all. It was cold, in fact. The grass was gone, as was the driveway. And the flowers. It was all covered with fine white stuff that glittered in the morning air. I went outside and touched it. It was not warm either.

“Honey, what’s going on?” I called. “The outside, it’s different.”

My wife poked her head out from the kitchen. “They’re talking about it on the news now. It was Gale, they say.”

“Who’s Gale?”

“Apparently a winter storm. She came through last night.”

Well, that was rude. I felt like I should call someone and complain, maybe the HOA. “Was it just our street?”

“No, dear,” my wife said. “They say she’s 200 miles wide.”

Well, that was something. Definitely more than our street then. That was something the governor ought to handle, if not the president.

“So what do we do now?” I called. My wife seemed to be more of an authority on the situation, if only because she was plugged into the Internet, who tended to know about stuff.

“They say we just have to wait.”

“For how long? I have a meeting at 8:30 with the Sarrington Group and the car is covered.”

“They’re saying you can just brush it off.”

“But it’s cold.”

“They say to just put on a jacket.”

I put on a jacket and stepped outside. It was still cold. I went in and put on another jacket on top of the first but couldn’t get the zipper done up. Now I was cold and couldn’t move my arms.

“I feel like we ought to call the police,” I said. “I mean, where is this Gale now?”

“They’ve got her on radar,” my wife called. “She’s moving northeast at 40mph.”

“Well, it should be easy to catch her then.” I felt like I was the only one talking sense.

“Dear, it’s not a matter of catching her,” my wife said. “She’s 40,000 square miles. Now shut the door and come finish your breakfast.”

I ended up having to cancel the meeting with the Sarrington Group. They were based in Minnesota where apparently this sort of thing is common, so they graciously rescheduled. My wife and sat in the breakfast nook looking out at the devastation that Gale has wrecked on our neighborhood.

“Did they say anything about motive?” I asked as we sipped our coffee. “I mean, what would make someone do something like this?”

“I think it’s just in her nature,” my wife said. “I must say, it is pretty though.”

“Honey,” I said, turning to her. “You say that but you weren’t there. I went outside. I experienced it firsthand. Believe me when I tell you, it was cold.”

The past few weeks, parts of the southern US got snow where such things are not at all common. This was an imagining of what that might have looked like.