Chill

The night was young and the weather was warm. In fact, it was almost hot. Jill sat in her house in Canada, watching her television and boiling water on the stove. There was no one in the house except for her and her lazy cat. Despite the hot weather, the window was closed. She always kept her window closed at night because she was afraid that some strange breed of insect would come in and build a nest in her home. So she sat there in front of her television, almost perspiring, when suddenly the temperature dropped. She felt a shiver ran down her spine and looked up immediately. She instinctively looked at the window and saw that it was closed. There was no doubt that the draft had been there; she was still rubbing her arm, smoothing the hair that was standing on it, back down.

Her little paralysis broke when she heard the kettle whistling on the stove. The whistle was loud and clear now and she realized that it must have been going on for a long time without her noticing it. She saw little gushes of water spurting out from the kettle's spout. She walked straight over to the kitchen and felt something come from behind her. She froze in her tracks when she felt yet another draft of cold air - or could it have been the same one - from behind her and blast into her and move towards the kitchen. Her eyes were fixed on the stove, basically because that was where they had been when she had felt the cold creep up on her. She was looking at the stove when the kettle simply dropped. It did not tip, nor did something accidentally bump it off. It had been on the innermost compartment on the stove. It looked as if something had pulled it off the stove at lightning speed and let it drop onto the floor. Jill stared in dumbstruck horror at the water, which seeped out of the spout quicker that she felt comfortable with.

There was no one in the house to run to and she did not know what to do. So she walked over to get a rag to clear it up. She stepped carefully over the spilled water, knowing that it would be boiling hot and got the rag from inside a drawer. She knelt down beside the water ans started to wipe it up. Her hand stopped moving and she hitched in a breath. She opened the kettle top and stuck her hand in to make sure. The water, which had just been boiling was icy cold. When she regained her composure, she turned around and the window was opened.