The Trillium building’s majestic lobby seems like it is busier this week. That is a function of some of the staff being forced to stay over at the building due to the snow compacted under the ice coating of the frozen sleet. We support the stay over, since that means a slightly shorter wait for assistance in case of sudden need.

We had one of those in the Salon yesterday. We have a monthly Barber Call with Bethany to keep the staff presentable for the Socotra House External relations. Vic was last in the line for shearing and in the chair under her care, head down and reclined. She had moved his foldable wheelchair to the corner, which was part of the problem. He was unable to stand and was effectively trapped in the service chair.

Rocket and Splash were cropped and had gone back to the office on the fourth floor. If they had stuck around before lunch in the Galley. If they had stayed, the problem would have been solved immediately. But sadly, it was not.

Bethany was clipping around Vic’s right ear when Marjorie shuffled in without her cane. She is a frail lady, we estimate in her mid to late eighties. The unfortunate incident occurred when she attempted to mount one of the fancy chairs by the east window to wait for her appointment. She was wearing some shiny fashion trousers that hung loosely on her frail frame. When she turned to sit, her modest weight failed on her transition to a seating position. She slid from the chair as if it was made of the same clinging ice at the intersection by the Rotonda Condominium across the street. She made a modest thump when she hit the floor, flat on her back.

Bethany wheeled to look, pulling away from Vic who opened his eyes to see what had occurred, but she was down beside other service chair with Bethany on a knee attempting to provide aid. She was not strong enough to lift Marjorie and Vic blinked without the ability to rise and reach his rolling chair. The three of them discussed the issue, Marjorie raising her head as Bethany grabbed a pillow for Majorie’s head so she would not have to rest it on the tile.

There was a brief discussion about how help might be arranged and a call to the front desk was made to see if assistance could be summoned and whether Vic could render help with haircut incomplete, swaddled in the apron and towels from the shampoo rendered before the sheering commenced. The lobby had the Mah Jong group with a session, tiles clacking on the big table so the minor commotion did not draw immediate attention.

She was flat on the floor for several minutes as some ladies from the Independent Living Section on floors 7-12 brought more pillows and a fluffy quilt. It transformed the Salon into a sort of homeless shelter in the middle of the vibrant senior living facility.

“Looks like we are in between,” said Bethany looking down at Marjorie under the quit. “I mean, you are between being able to walk and needing the cane.”

“Or worse,” said Vic, struggling to get seated upright in the barber chair. “I heard we are going to maybe get another snowstorm tomorrow. Three to ten inches could hit on top of what is put there already.”

Bethany waved to Carl and LeMoine, Maintenance Staff, who from the doorway said they would get a litter from the storeroom. Then disappeared. Marjorie spoke from the floor, voice a little muffled and frail. “This is getting complicated. I just need to get upright.”

“You are in between on a lot of things, Dear. In between being able to walk and needing a cane. In between some sort of chaos in the government in which both of the major parties cannot agree on anything. They are stumbling from the activists on both ends of the spectrum of politics. Democratic Socialists are suddenly in charge of New York City, once the symbol of global Capitalist activity.”

“And we are in between storms. They have a lot of sensational messaging going on. They are even calling this winter storm a fast-emerging Bomb-Cyclone. If we lose power, we are going to have to sit closer to each other to ensure we don’t freeze.”

“But we are in between being relaxed and in the middle of a freezing maelstrom.”

Vic managed to get upright and wave to have his wheelchair pushed close enough to board, in between segments in the grooming experience. “Bethany can finish the haircut later. I can wait until Marjorie is taken care of.”

She nodded, knowing that working in a facility in the Trillium we are always in between care for seniors, publishing dynamic fiction and marveling at the people in the Memory Care Clinic next to the Salon. Being in between segments of his grooming regimen, Vic decided to wait in the Galley upstairs. It would be quiet with people waiting to see what the storm track is going to do to the days activities, and in the middle of the transition from drinking Flat Yank coffee to something more exciting for the afternoon.

The last snowstorm would have been more dramatic if it hadn’t been rained on. We may get a blizzard starting tomorrow afternoon. We are in between knowing what is happening now and what is coming next. The weather guessers claim they are going to run some more meteorological models and tell us how tall those drifts out in front of the building are going to get.

Splash had come back down to settle the Socotra Grooming account. He shook his head at the confusion as he took Bethany’s tablet and drew something that looked like a signature.

“It is almost legible” she said with a smile. “We are in between a completed transaction.”

“Yes,” said Bethany from the floor. “And I am halfway to getting upright.”

“I support that,” replied Splash. “I am going to go look at the computer models and see if we are going to lose the in-between part of cyclones in a rough winter.”

“Or if it is going to get worse,” said Marjorie, adjusting her pillow on the floor.

Meanwhile, Outside the Glass

By late afternoon the light outside the Trillium had flattened into that pale winter gray that makes everything look paused rather than finished. Headlights stayed on even though it wasn’t quite dusk. Engines idled longer than usual. The snowbanks along the curb had hardened into sculpted barricades, no longer piles but objects—things to be navigated around rather than removed.

The Jeep at the intersection waited through two cycles of the light, its driver apparently in no hurry to test traction. Across the street, the Rotonda’s entrance ramp glistened faintly, reflecting the same indecision that had settled inside the building. Nobody was going fast. Nobody was quite stopped.

Inside, Marjorie was eventually lifted—not dramatically, not urgently, but carefully—by people who knew how to count to three and move together. Vic’s haircut would be finished another day. Bethany wiped her hands, reset the chairs, and checked the tablet for the next name on the list, as if continuity itself were part of the treatment.

Outside, the plows had gone through once already, leaving behind a surface that looked managed but wasn’t yet safe. Tomorrow’s storm remained theoretical, a possibility suspended in models and percentages.

Between what had fallen and what might come next, the Trillium stood lit and warm, holding its people in place—not moving forward, not going back—waiting for gravity, weather, or time to decide which way things would tilt.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com