Natalie slammed the door and raced outside through the fresh layer of snow. Her brother’s hockey equipment tumbled loudly on the porch, blocking the front door and sending the sound of the howling wind inside the kitchen.
Her heartbeat thumped like loose change in a dryer as she dashed across the snow and approached the mailbox. In her frenzied state, she could not hear her father’s warning that the city had not salted the surrounding roads.
It was not long before she reached their mailbox, luckily without slipping on the ice. Years of dance practice had boosted her dexterity and made her more or less immune to accidents like these.
She shuffled nervously through the mailbox contents, examining department store ads and other junk mail. After only seconds of searching, she finally pinpointed her destination. A bright red stamp with the Vaganova School’s logo danced on the letter next to her name.
Natalie reached down to grab two of the other letters that were trenched in the snow and retreated home. The neighborhood was covered with snow from the 4th storm of the year, which was unusual considering it was only the third week of October.
Many students and parents in the tiny town of Grafton worked hard, but a corresponding payoff was quite rare. Natalie’s ten years of training were not in vain, as this letter offered her a full-ride scholarship to study dance and guaranteed a work placement afterward.
She quickly raced back to the kitchen to tell her family the news.
“ Glad they are paying all of it”, exclaimed her father in the kitchen, with as much strength as one could muster 90 minutes before his fourth consecutive 18-hour shift.
Natalie quickly shuffled her belongings into her bag and rushed to the school to meet her dance teacher. Mrs Reynolds, a dance instructor hailing from New York City, consistently encouraged her to apply. However, Natalie always sensed a mild hesitation in her insistence, as she often hedged her advice with recommendations to examine other reputable state programs.
The North Dakota snow gently massaged her father’s Honda CRV as they slowly approached her high school. Her brother tapped his feet against the car floor to keep his feet warm until they approached the school gate.
Natalie raced inside to begin what she knew could be her last semester at Grafton Middle School.
“I imagine this will be the first time anyone has left North Dakota since the 2040s”, said Mrs. Reynolds.
They both sat in the common room while she prepared tea through the interruption of a brief power outage. The pair were so ecstatic that they stayed in the room and talked through the first half of the second period. Natalie slipped awkwardly into her English class twenty minutes late with a note from her teacher about this appointment. She kept silent about her news and half-heartedly listened as the teacher finished discussing the last chapter of the day’s grammar lesson.
Natalie’s outlook gyrated throughout the day as she began to discuss the visa and residency requirements with her teacher and school counselor during subsequent class periods. Some of the many requirements included two sets of bank statements and three years of tax returns to prove financial eligibility. These sounded easy enough. But the letter droned on about other complex matters. At that moment, Natalie particularly regretted being a rural resident of America’s then-most globally isolated state.
An opportunity like this was special for anyone from North Dakota. Once accepted, students received a four-year scholarship to study at the academy. She would also obtain the right to work in the region for up to three years after the program.
The county and state offices were mostly within a short drive away. However, the nearest eligible hospital was in Bismarck, which would be a five-hour drive depending on the weather and the agreeability of her father’s vehicle.
Natalie would need to contact the Department of Wellbeing to schedule an appointment and complete the paperwork before the end of January to be eligible for admission in April. Her letter included a voucher for a round-trip flight, redeemable after she submitted all of the documentation.
Natalie decided to take the bus back to her friend Amy’s house and walk home after school. The pair trudged through the snow, discussing the turn of events before eventually stopping by John Mavig Bridge.
She recognized students from her school shouting as they played ice hockey on the nearby lake. They had also constructed a massive swing on the bridge and would launch into the water in the spring and summer. Braver ones would occasionally swing off the hill in the winter and swing back, avoiding the thud of the ice or the greater risk of hypothermia if the ice broke. Johnny Randall had become famous in the school from a failed dive attempt that nearly rendered him paralyzed.
A pack of bison darted through the snow as they continued their journey towards Natalie’s home.The two were a likely combo in their high school of only 90 students, in which there were next to no resources to accommodate academic excellence.
Amy had displayed an interest in biology, anatomy, and particularly sport’s injuries, and was later able to help consult the school nurse and football coaches in subsequent years. Natalie also suspected that some of her advice had saved her from potential career risking injuries, which was fortunate given that the technical instruction for dance was sparse, to say the least, throughout North Dakota.
The stable nature of their friendship ensued as they casually chatted about winter plans and other events, with very little joy or sorrow displayed in response to recent events. The two agreed to meet the following week after Natalie’s trip to Bismark and promised they would spend as much time together as possible during the next Christmas holiday.
The drive to Bismark was over five hours, assuming no vehicle mishaps or highway blockages. Natalie worried that neighboring cities would be protesting the newly proposed copper mining expansion through North Dakota and Montana.
Natalie was hesitant to ask her father how much the placement fee was but suspected it was a fair amount after examining the sparse display of groceries her family bought this week. Although times were harder for the family in recent years, she was still grateful that her father had broken ties with the state smugglers. Her friend Amy knew people higher up in this area in other cities, although she never explained her concerns in detail. Natalie knew that the risks became intricate as one advanced, to the point of risking death or imprisonment after repeated adverse encounters.
They soon drove past the headquarters of Dakota Holdings, the newly formed state-owned conglomerate that controlled the state’s agriculture exports and energy imports from neighboring Western states. The previous months’ strikes had subsided, and the parking lot was overflowing with seasonal workers and trucks from Colorado and Montana. Both were encouraged by the initial 3-hour stretch of the drive, in which they did not encounter malicious traffic or protests.
The pair entered the hospital and checked in at reception, where they were greeted with the news of a subsequent three-hour wait before they could see the doctor. Natalie shuffled through magazines and other materials while watching other names called in to meet a doctor.
Two kids with sprained ankles and a middle-aged man with a broken arm entered through the doors during the first hour. They had both entered the hospital nearly 35 minutes after her father and she arrived. Her father glared briefly and then gained his composure after seeing the glimmer of hope in his daughter’s eyes.
Today was Natalie’s second time inside a hospital, as most medical issues were attended by a visiting house doctor or at local clinics. It was rare to receive an appointment unless there was some form of medical emergency.
Natalie exited the doctor’s office three hours later. She glanced awkwardly at the crack across the glass of the front counter. The receptionist regrettably explained that the soonest this hospital could do the necessary follow-up appointment was around two months later. Any form of logic, including that the doctor had already performed 90% of the analysis and only needed to do blood work, fell to deaf ears as they struggled to negotiate a timely follow-up appointment.
Natatlie’s father agreed to the follow-up appointment reluctantly, persistently mentioning his intention to check back in at a later date. Both of them were silent for virtually the entire drive home.
Natalie lay awake, unable to sleep, as she thought about contacting her guidance counselor at school the following day. She doubted there was an option to defer, which would leave her to the abysmal prospects of Bismark or perhaps other select opportunities across the Northern states.
Two vehicles approached the house around 11 p.m. Natalie peered through the windows discreetly, careful to keep her lights off and to make minimal noise. Her father quietly opened the front door, assuming everyone was asleep, and quietly stepped outside in the snow. Natalie could vaguely make out his tracks on the snow as he approached the two cars.
Natalie quietly opened her window and crawled out through the back door. She crawled across the porch until she was outside, submerged in the snow. After crawling for around a hundred meters, she eventually made out the Bismarck Copper logo on both trucks.
It was common knowledge throughout most of North Dakota that state smugglers often operated under the pretext of mining transport. Neighboring Montana had already struggled with its 6th annual state copper deficit, which had exacerbated previous infrastructure issues. She vaguely remembered similar vehicles that used to pass through the city around seven years ago, though most neighbors had avoided all mention of these kinds of topics.
She knelt outside behind a bush, avoiding the urge to shake from the cold and snow that soon sent a spark of tingling pain as her knees and toes became numb. The wind howled, covering the sound of her chattering teeth and discrete footsteps. She could hear the conversation that sounded relatively wholesome, not unlike most neighbor chats, and that only briefly erupted into a tone that approached a quarrel. Nevertheless, she remained very suspicious of the encounter.
Natalie heard another door open suddenly and took this opportunity to make her way back into her room before her father wrapped up the conversation. She tossed and turned and struggled to sleep, finally settling for three hours of interrupted slumber.
Time taunted Natalie throughout the school day as she struggled to maintain any semblance of focus during her class periods. Her planned walk home with Amy was the day’s only respose, although she did not feel ready to share her discovery from the previous evening.
The two were most silent as they concluded their walk and agreed to meet up the following day.
Amy waved goodbye as Natalie paced ahead to John Mavig Bridge. Two younger boys from her school stared curiously as Natalie quickly passed them. Dusk was approaching, and she imagined this was the last group in the area.
The swing gently swayed from the light breeze of the evening. Her parents would soon be worried, and she knew it would be difficult to fake a smile as she knew of the ongoing dilemma ahead. No other hospitals in the state would likely accept any appointment, and her chances of getting an earlier appointment were slim to none.
As she began to think of returning, a new flash of connections suddenly hit her as she reflected on events from recent weeks. She quickly turned around in a trance-like state and began walking towards the swing, her mind possessed by events of the past week.
Amy’s monologues of various sports injuries played through her head.
She reflected on the two kids and the older man, who all entered the hospital room just shortly before her father slammed his hands on the doors of the glass window at the reception.
Inspired by the victory of her life’s previous risks, she clenched the rope and swung towards the frozen lake. She reflected on her inherited encyclopedic knowledge of various injuries, carefully planning her trajectory to leave a margin of error as she approached the ice.
The right injury could heal in weeks, allowing her father to avoid the perils of his past work. One mistake could cost him everything. She knew the ice would be much more forgiving.