Snow

Sitting by my fire on a cold, gray day, I hear children laughing and yelling outside. Annoyance hits me like cold seeping in through a cracked window, slow, invasive, and impossible to ignore. The schools may be closed due to snow, but I still have to work from home. The glow of my computer screen is a poor substitute for sunlight, but it demands my attention all the same. I rise to close the thick curtains, hoping to muffle the noise, but my hand stills on the fabric when I catch sight of the scene beyond the glass.

Children spin in the falling snow, arms outstretched as if they could gather every flake into their grasp and hold it there. Their boots stamp small, scattered prints across the white drifts, weaving paths that meander and loop with no purpose other than joy. I watch them kneel and search the frozen ground for sticks that will serve as arms and spines for the snowmen that will stand guard until the thaw comes. Their cheeks glow pink in the frigid air, their laughter rising and falling in bursts, light enough to seem carried by the wind. They are happy to have stolen this day from the grip of homework, chores, and responsibility.

As a child, I felt that same thrill at the first snowfall of the year. The moment flakes began to fall, I would bundle up and rush outside, eager to step into a world remade. Snow was possibility itself, endless in its promise. I could be an arctic explorer braving white wastelands in search of polar bears. I could be a doctor pushing through a blizzard to save a patient, the cold biting at my heels but never slowing me. I could be a builder, stacking frozen bricks into a sturdy snow house that was much grander in my imagination. I shaped companions out of the cold, both fantastical and realistic. Cats with long curling tails, dogs with ears frozen into alertness, and benevolent six-armed monsters stood beside me. They were as real to me as the frost that stung my fingers and the breath that puffed out in quick clouds before my face.

Now, when the snow falls, I grab a shovel.

I look again at the street outside my window. At first, the snow still gleams white under the dull winter sky, but the air feels heavier. A shadow of gray spreads across the snowflakes, seeping inward until the flakes are no longer entirely white. The trails left behind look darker, as if the snow is bruising underfoot.

I lean closer to the glass. What falls now is not snow at all, it is ash. The ashes of lost hopes, of forgotten dreams, of wasted potential fall around me, not with silence, but with a whisper. The whispers of what may have been coat the ground quickly, swallowing the bright whiteness until nothing remains but dull gray mounds. The children’s footsteps are heavier, and they are no longer running but trudging through the ashes. Some stick out their tongues, expecting the sharp, clean taste of snowflakes. Instead, their faces scrunch up as they taste the bitterness that wasn’t anticipated, too young to understand that what falls isn’t snow. They will understand soon enough, life will see to that. But I have seen enough disappointment for one lifetime, so I return to the chair by my fire, and contemplate the flakes I’ve added to this storm. The warmth presses at my skin, but cannot quite reach the cold that’s settled deeper in. After a brief moment I pause; and, resigned to the life I was given, get back to work. I have a deadline, after all.