Still

It was a cold winter morning as Benjamin made his way into the kitchen to make his daily cup of coffee. In the night, a storm had blown in from the east bank of the river. Rain had turned to sleet, and sleet turned to snow. Now little remained to remind one of a world not covered in the opalescent white of freshly fallen snow. It was nearly identical to the morning one year ago.

Benjamin walked in a haze as the hair on his feet bristled from the cold of the cracked hard wood on his bare soles. With steady steps he tried not to wake the sleeping world from its slumber. Mornings like these have ways of suspending the world’s breath. The snow inhales every sound, and each movement leaves one with a sense of pensive agony awaiting what will follow. It was as if he was the only creature that moved as the whole world was left frozen and still.

Benjamin filled his old-fashioned rusted iron kettle with the ice water that ran from the tap and placed it upon the gas stove. After several clicks of the struggling igniter failing to catch, he reached beneath the stove for a box of matches. On the second strike the sizzle of phosphorous broke the morning silence as he placed the glowing matchstick against the open gas line of the stovetop. With a hushed breath, the fire of the stove stirred to life. Benjamin twisted the knob on the stove to ensure a slow boil and placed his kettle atop the fresh fire of the stovetop, taking his place at the table to await its finish.

His apartment was nothing extravagant, but it sufficed. There was room enough, but it was in the kitchen that one felt the most cramped. There was just enough space for his kitchenette, dining table, and the two flimsy chairs that sat beside it. Otherwise, there was precious little room for much else. However, it wasn’t such a terrible thing on these cold winter mornings when the stove also sufficed as a heater for the snug room. But the one thing that Benjamin was always grateful for in his otherwise lackluster apartment was the window. Through it one could see the winding river and the east bank and the city beyond, just now stirring to life. Come summer the river would be full of sailors and swimmers, eager to escape the heat. However, in the winter, the river stood suspended, paralyzed in the thin sheet of ice that entrapped its flowing waters.

On the outside of the windowpane a row of icicles clung to the lingering cold of the pre-dawn morning as the first glowing rays of the rising sun illuminated their crystalline bodies. Through them Benjamin could see everything reflected and refracted, distorted in the early onset of their melt. The city on the far side of the bank, the smokestacks and streetlights that dotted the waking horizon, the river, devoid of any signs of life and encased in its icy tomb. He could see everything from his vantage point on the 9th story of his brick laden apartment building. He even saw the reflection of his own face, portrayed by his frosted windowpane. His eyes were quite sallow, his beard unkempt and disheveled, and beneath his eyes he could already see new bags forming.

“One year ago…,” Benjamin whispered to himself as he became entranced by the dangling icicles and what he could see captured and suspended in their translucence. As the amber glow of the sun reflected through them, he could see them slowly begin to melt. The horizon was a deep orange and yellow, but the sky was still a dark gray interspersed by lingering clouds from the previous night’s storm. Slowly, one drop of water fell and dripped onto the lower lip of the windowpane. Then another. Intermittent at first, the drops of melt became more and more rhythmic. Drip and then drop. One after another as the condensation collected at the tip of the icicle and then fell. Benjamin found himself fixated, no longer paying heed to the world that surrounded him, and not noticing the girl that entered the cramped kitchen, standing on the worn hardwood before him.

“Daddy, it woke me up,” his daughter said as she turned off the whistling kettle. She turned off the stove with one hand and sleepily rubbed the palm of her other into her crystal blue eyes. Her palms and face were porcelain, nearly as white as the freshly fallen snow outside. The condensation of the kettle collected on its lip and then dripped onto the stove top in perfect timing with the icicles.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Benjamin said as he came back to reality and the cramped kitchen. He quickly rose but his focus was no longer on the scalding kettle or the sleeping world outside. Instead, Benjamin approached the small cupboard above his kitchen sink. There that tiny package had sat, that small brown paper box and the two notes which rested upon it. For a year to the day, Benjamin had kept it safe and secure.

Its corners were compressed from the move but otherwise it was perfectly intact. The last relic which he cherished so dearly, too terrified to peer inside for fear of betraying its desires. He slid the box out from the cupboard and placed it upon the countertop. He took both notes from the cupboard and placed back the one addressed to him. That one he had read an untold number of times, always careful to heed its words. "Benjamin," the letter had read. "One year after I’m gone, please, give this to Frankie." Such a simple thing, yet still Benjamin struggled to grapple with its contents, and to place the message into reality. Yet regardless of his struggle to understand, its message remained concrete and resolute, unshakable in the fact that in its writing, the context for its existence was now law and nothing could undo that.

“Frankie,” Benjamin said to his half-sleeping daughter, his voice quivering ever so slightly. “Your mother wanted to give this to you.”

His daughter looked at him blankly for a moment, her doe eyes unsure of what to make of her father’s words. Yet, barely six, she still had an unwavering faith in his integrity. Silently she extended her fragile fingers and wrapped them around the unassumingly plain brown box and the note which accompanied it. Her loose pajama pants legs brushed against each other as she slowly shuffled to the small, round kitchen table and placed the box atop it. Without a word, she pried open the box and peered inside.

Benjamin never asked what was inside the box or the note—he didn’t need to. He knew everything he needed to from his daughter’s reaction. He saw as her pale blue eyes grew red from the tears. First from the lingering sorrow and pain, the hurt of one who could not understand why things happen the way they do in the world around them. And then from joy. The joy of a daughter who knew her mother still loved her and would still be with her even though she had passed from this world. And slowly the flowing tears abated until they too joined the steady drip of the icicles and the kettle, her crystalline blue eyes adding to the rhythmic and natural chorus of the still world.