Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation

Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Hibernation

You wake up cold despite the layers of quilts atop your bed. Snuggling closer to your warm partner, who's sound asleep, you remember you don't have to work today. You try to remember what day it actually is. But it doesn't matter. Today, for the first time in weeks, you have nowhere to be but here. Home.

The wind howls against your window as you pull on warm socks to guard against the cold of the kitchen tiles. As you pad down the hallway into the kitchen, your cat weaves between your legs, chasing your warmth. The coffee machine whirs, breaking the calm quiet of the house, and you look out at the freshly fallen snow blanketing the ground in sparkling white. You couldn't go anywhere today even if you wanted to. The roads are covered, and the snow is still falling thickly. A silence has fallen over the street; even the squirrels that usually hustle and bustle around your neighbor's bird feeder are tucked away in their homes this cold winter morning. Everything seems to be saying slow down, there's no need to be productive today. Just rest.

Steaming mug in hand, you burrow into the couch, surrounded by a pile of books you got for the holidays and a brand-new notebook. A tin of fudge from your grandma. A candle that smells like Christmas. A string of lights glowing. A warm blanket your friend knit and your purring cat. All you need to rest and hunker down for the rest of the winter as the cold lingers in these short, dark days.