The Sound of Snow

The snow started falling not long after he escaped from the cabin, and now the big flakes have coated everything with a soft, insulating layer that leaves the woods hushed. Night comes fast this time of year, and Will knows he doesn’t have much daylight left.

He trudges along the path, boots kicking up fresh powder, lost in thought. He knows these trails, these woods, well. As a kid, he spent too many reluctant hours following his family on the hikes his father always instigated.

He’s not sure whose idea it was to come back to the cabin, to spend what would have been his father’s seventieth birthday, celebrating and mourning and remembering in this place his father returned to so many times.

Probably his sisters’. Not his, certainly. He wouldn’t have chosen this location. He wouldn’t have chosen this trip in the first place.

His camera hangs around his neck, an excuse, an afterthought. He tucks it into his jacket to protect it from the snow.

A flash of color catches his eye as a red bird alights on the branch in front of him and trills for its mate.

Cardinalis cardinalis, he thinks automatically. Northern cardinal. Males red, females warm red-tinged brown. Found in a wide variety of bushy or semi-open habitats.

He remembers early morning birding expeditions with his father, one of the few activities he hadn’t needed to be forced into. He’d soaked up the information in the bird book from a young age, and now the avian trivia is permanently imprinted in his long-term memory.

He slowly unzips his jacket and lifts his camera. He’s not really here to take pictures, and he has hundreds of cardinal pictures already, but he’d be stupid to pass up this opportunity. Cardinal pictures always sell well. There’s something striking about the brilliant red against the pristine snow. He supposes people find it festive.

Festive. The cabin is festive right now. Festive and cozy, with his sisters baking cookies (peanut butter kiss drops, his father’s favorite) and a fire blazing merrily in the hearth.

Remember when dad would try to roast marshmallows, but he was never patient enough, and he would light them on fire and burn the hell out of them, and then toss them into the woods and say he meant that one for the squirrels anyway?

Right? And remember how he always needed to find the exact right poking stick to rearrange the logs? How he acted like making a campfire was fine art?

Will had made some excuse about the late afternoon light being perfect for photography, grabbed his coat and boots–and remembered his camera, at the last minute–and fled the cabin.

He has some small satisfaction now, snapping the cardinal. He’ll review the pictures later, when he can see the fine details on a larger screen, but he thinks they’re turning out well.

The interruption has given him time to clear his head, and he takes stock of his surroundings. He’d been walking automatically without paying attention, but he knows where he is. The turnoff to the lake is just ahead.

He has no intention of going to the lake, even though the icy surface will be beautiful in the falling snow.

Remember when Will capsized his kayak?

Maybe the kayak had been a little too long yet for his small frame to really handle. Maybe he’d been showing off, trying to earn his father’s approval by making a sharp slalom around the buoy. But the front end had dipped and flooded and flipped, and Will had suddenly found himself surfacing and sputtering and shaking lakewater from his eyes.

His sisters–and everyone else watching on the beach–had started laughing.

He’d felt hot tears of humiliation start down his cheeks. And even soaked as he was, his father had somehow known.

What are you doing, crying like that? You want everyone to think you’re some sort of pansy or something? Go on, you have to flip that sucker over and get back in.

He’d improved his kayaking skills since then–he’d had no choice–but he’d never enjoyed it.

No, he wouldn’t be going down to the lake.

He’s disappointed, in a way. So many of his friends have fond memories of visiting the lake with their fathers, fishing off the dock, one generation passing knowledge to another.

What the heck was that? You cast like a girl! Reel it in and try again, and put some muscle into it this time.

His father’s disappointment, that none of the children had shown any aptitude for fishing. It was never spoken out loud, but Will had known. And he’d never spoken of it with his sisters. How could he? They could never know, and he could never discuss, being a son after two daughters, being the long-awaited child who should carry on a legacy.

Maybe his sisters had known. They’d asked if he’d wanted to say a few words at the funeral. Not asked him to give a eulogy, no; they’d given him the choice. He’d chosen not to.

What could he talk about? The disappointment of a man who’d ventured into the woods at any opportunity, who’d grown up hunting and fishing and camping, who’d dreamed of becoming a wildlife biologist from a young age, having a city-slicker son who avoided nature if at all possible?

The only time Will actively sought nature was in pursuit of a photograph, the early mornings in the park, seeking to capture the birds he knew so well. Only then did he actually enjoy the smell of the dirt and leaves, the feel of the grass under his feet, all of his senses sharpened to catch the telltale sight and sound of one species or another.

The bush in front of him erupts soundlessly as a flurry of white and brown launches upward. Will is so startled it takes him a moment to realize what he’s seeing.

Tyto alba pratincola, North American barn owl. Lives in open country, farmland or grassland, with some interspersed woodland. Nocturnal.

What was it doing out here, now?

It’s perched on a branch just ahead of him, and it regards Will in its inscrutable gaze.

The brown bars in its plumage blend perfectly with the winter bark, and the softly falling snow perfectly matches its white speckles. Even as close as he is, if he blinks or turns away he will have trouble seeing it again.

But its eyes…

Wild eyes, that watch him with a calm, undoubtable intelligence. They transfix him, seem to peer into his thoughts and into his soul. He can’t help but yearn for the free nature of the magnificent creature in front of him.

It is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Bird and man stare at each other as the falling flakes settle over them both.

His father would have loved this.

Memories…

These same woods, early mornings, Will being shaken awake. He and his father, grabbing the bird book and binoculars, creeping out to make a game of identification.

Will’s analytical mind had loved identifying and categorizing the birds, sliding each into its place on the taxonomical tree, comparing and contrasting the orders and species. His father had loved the woods.

Never be a biologist. You’ll never find a job doing research. You need to get a practical job.

After earning his bachelor’s in biology, Will’s father had spent thirty years fixing garage doors to feed his family.

Will’s job as an accountant pays his bills, but his passion for birds, for photography, is a nice side gig with an increasing paycheck. He’s earning enough that, maybe, soon, he can consider doing it full time.

He has his father, and the dawn bird quests, to thank for that.

He doesn’t even consider lifting his camera now. This is not a moment for photographs. This moment–this private moment–is for experiencing. For being.

The owl takes flight on silent wings, with only the downdraft of air against Will’s face to mark its passage.

Sound is dampened in the falling snow; and in this moment Will hears only perfect silence. The snow has covered the woods, hiding imperfections, burying them beneath a softer layer.

He stands a moment longer in the stillness, then turns and starts back toward the cabin.

~~~~~~~~~~~

(Special thanks to Julie Johnson of Autumn Mist Studio for allowing the use of her magnificent cover photo. And yes, it is a great gray owl and not a barn owl, but it perfectly captures the mood of the story, and it's too perfect not to use.)