On the Edge

Specks of dry snow scraped against her cheeks, their little arms like knives that stabbed every swollen pore exposed to the wind. She felt nothing. Standing in the cold she watched as the man in front of her walked off the edge. The scrape of his rubber soles were silenced by the deafening sounds of emptiness. She climbed atop the stone pilaster and stared at the footprints that once marked where the man had stood. The bevelled edges from his shoes began to disappear under the weight of new snow, burying what little trace was left of him. It was a grim reminder of what was already apparent to her, nothing matters when you are gone.

"That's not true!" her best friend once told her, crying as if he had pickled tears, "life matters and you matter to me. Don't give up."

She felt numb at the thought and began to shake at the sight of the void upon the frosty horizon, "there's nobody out there", she thought to herself, "there's nothing else for me."

She took a step closer to the edge when a voice echoed from below, "Come on down! The snow is soft down here!"

She had forgotten that she was on a date. Her old thoughts suddenly disappeared as she saw the man, her best friend, laying on the ground down below playing with the snow. She stepped off the pilaster and landed next to him. She felt warm and smiled, laying beside her snow angel.