Devoured by Winter

The frozen bench crunched under the weight of me. A piercing wind slapped me gingerly before it wrapped around me with a mighty force. A deep chill sunk into my bones, it numbed me to my core. My body was past shivering. I cannot remember when I first clenched my teeth to stop them from chattering, for I had been exposed to the cold for such a length of time that it had been lost on me. I nursed my aching jaw, massaging out the tension with my gloved hands. Beneath the gloves, my fingers were stiff, for the cold of the night had seeped into my knuckles.

My slightly chapped lips had become immobile, like stone, they must have been the colour of violet. I tried to ignore the tingling in the tip of my nose, and the burning in my nostrils after every shaky breath.

From my position on the frozen, old-wood bench, I had a great view of the lake. Its expanse was vast. A reflective sheet of ice covered the lake like a glass screen, between the murky depths and the outer-world's winter wonderland. A hazy, astral reflection of the night sky lay imprinted on the water's frozen surface. I then found myself tentatively looking sky-ward. The velvety ribbon of twilight shades, a star-spangled vision. A magnificent feeling of complete awe draped over me. I feared to blink; the chance of catching sight of a shooting star was far too fleeting, and intriguing. I continued to gaze up at the stars for a long while. I was dragged back to my own headspace when a low hush fell over the lake. The retired owls of the evening had too fallen silent.

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The moonlight, silver and unwavering, casts a ghostly vail over the lake's scenery. I study my surrounds the best I could in the evening’s dim light. The harsh and strangling claws of winter have irrefutably taken hold and sunk their nails in deep. The cold has engulfed and devoured the once vibrant landscape. I reminisce on the innate beauty I had found myself entrenched in, in this very spot, only two weeks prior. The evergreen spruce trees skirting the now dead lake's perimeter, have transformed almost overnight. Their brilliantly decorated branches, a textured emerald-green, are no longer visible as a dramatic coat of white powder, that is thick and heavy, settles like a quilted cloak on the trees' frail shoulders. The intricately beaded ice crystals, in the carpet of snow surrounding me, glisten like fish scales, as if illuminated underwater by refracted light. There are several high, old-century styled lampposts that encircle the outskirts of the area. Their beams although bright amid the night's swallowing darkness, project light in a concentrated circle on the ground. By my judgements, the circumference of this vail of light is approximately two meters wide. This is both 1: impractical to be able to see anything past your immediate surroundings, and, 2: paranoia-inducing; due to the plethora of problems that can arise from travelling alone, in the dark of the night.