Icy Cold

The bottles stood in neat rows, up to their necks in crushed ice. The caps looked like polka dot fabric. How well I've been trained, after years of wandering through fabric stores. Place before me any regularly spaced pattern, whether it is the slats of a wooden fence or the bright metal caps of frosty beverages and my mind will organize it into a facsimile of a fabric print. Our brains naturally search for order and repetition. During a disastrously hot week that left most of us without power, there was no chance that anyone besides me would only admire these chilly patterns. This is a pause that refreshes more than just the eyes.