The ice that grows inside the radio

Dear Delyara, I'm sixty-one, a solo long-haul trucker, pulling forty tons of frozen cargo down the Dalton Highway through a blizzard that could freeze gas. The CB radio has been dead for four hours—just the static of the northern lights clicking in my headset. It’s been twelve days since I spoke to another human being face-to-face, unless you count the cashier at the fuel stop in Fairbanks who didn't even look up when she took my card. You start talking to yourself out here just to make sure you're still alive. The dark is total, the frost is creeping up the side mirrors, and the loneliness isn't an emotion anymore—it’s a physical frost settling over my lungs, slow and heavy.