Waiting for the Season's End

The snow knows.

It cradles me within its white sheets like a newborn.

Though, I don't feel the cold.

I used to, but somewhere at the end, maybe even parts of the middle, I could not feel it anymore.

End. End. I can't even call this an end.

But I am in this temporary tomb, unfeeling to the frostbite. There is no feeling at all, except temperance. And maybe I should feel grateful for that because with this unfeeling comes with a pause.

I cannot decay. Not like how I should.

With stillness I listen to my end mirrored in the intricate unending snowflakes, repeating and replaying the moment of my demise like a chant.

A scream pleading to someone, something human, animal, divine—

A gunshot.

A breathless, "no."

The sound echoed, engraved, and froze itself into the ice.

"No." My last word. No. The first words of my new life.

The snow listened. The snow covered. The snow froze time and space.

It whispered in crackled, rasped, breaking glass, "Blood on our body. Not of nature. Injustice of order. No, the dying whispered. We accept this plea."

I want the wolves to discover me. I want them to tear me apart. I want them to carry me like a lit torch between their teeth towards the scales that a blind woman holds. The wolves bellies full. An offering, the only one I can give.

For now, though, I wait.

I wait until the snow decays.

And the snow knows.