I See Things Differently

My legs constrict into my lap on the chair by the window. In a position familiar to the unborn lifestyle I once knew, inside the womb of a mother I’ve never known. I don’t take comfort in hugging my knees to my chest, nor the cup of hot chocolate hovering near my parted lips. The comfort I seek lies beyond the window, hiding in the drifting snow.

The rest of the world has been gobbled up by the hungry ebony sky. Yet the snow dances bravely in the winter wind, defying the evenings craving for nothingness. The snow isn’t simply snow in my eyes. The crystalized clouds falling from the heavens are a tapestry of endless stories being painted right outside my window. 

It’s cold, fiercely cold in my house suddenly. For the walls have holes and my hot beverage has disappeared. I’m an old widower, with no children to call my own and far to old now to be blessed as a mother. The war took my husband from me. I’m unsure if his passing is a blessing or a curse. Though he was a dishonest, spiteful old man; at least he kept the house warm. I stand up from the rickety wooden chair and find a pen and paper to write with. I don’t have anyone left in my life in particular to write to, it’s more of a letter to myself I suppose. Nothing left for me to do but count the days till I die, I write. No one to keep me company. I even miss my husbands’ rantings about how his back is killing him and that milk is too expensive nowadays. Despite all the times he was unfaithful, he filled the silence just enough to keep me sane.

I look up from the paper and glance out the window. In the shadows there is a flicker of movement. The silhouette of a sleek and bushy tail. A slender frame crouched low to the ground and ears that twitch and tremble at every sound. The dark and mysterious figure drifts though the snowy fields, like black ink gliding out of a quill pen. It stops to ponder its next move. With the swiftness of a deadly predator, it leaps into the air, snatching a quail out of the thicket. I know I am this creature. I am this majestic animal strutting proud and haughtily with diner betwixt my needle like teeth. I am the fox of the winter night. I gently trot to the hole in the ground that is my home and tuck myself away in it safely. 

Tis dark in this place; I never liked the dark. To chase it away I light a match and bring it close to ma face. I’m careful not to set ma beard aflame as I light ma cigar. Ma wife would be beside herself wit laughter if I came home wit half ma face as naked as the day I was born. Course she’d blame it on ma nasty habit and say somethin like, “I told you to quit on those cigs!” 

God damn that woman, but I love the hell outta her. I sling ma game over ma shoulder and trudge through this dammed snow. I hate the winter, nothin but a nuisance all this cold and quiet and no good game to kill. It’s 110 steps back to the house and I’ve taken bout 50. The wind kicks up and father winter don’t take to me too kindly cuz he’s sending a blizzard to blind me. The frozen wind bites ma nose and extinguishes ma cigar. Ma grip tightens on the rope holding the three scrawny rabbits and one squirrel I managed to catch wit ma traps this afternoon. I count another 50 steps, but I still can’t make out ma home in all this dammed snow. I pause and look all around me but every witch direction looks the same. I try to retrace ma steps but it’s too late, the snow has covered all ma tracks I left behind me, wherever behind me used to be. Ma hearts beating fiercly like a stallion chasin a mare. I spin round and round in circles makin ma head dizzy. I’m lost in the blizzard wit no idea where to go. I aint got much of a choice now, so I pick a direction and keep on trekin. Five, ten steps later I see somethin in the distance, a dim golden light burning steady and bright. I sigh heavily and pray to god that the angles don’t take me just yet. The snow is up to my knees and it feels as tho there are invisible frosty witch fingers diggin into ma skin. This devilish blizzard wants to swallow me whole and keep me from the light. The closer I get the harder tis to pull my feet forward. I can see the light clearer now, and the shadow of a woman behind it. I reach my hand out and wave fiercely, I want to call out to her, but the wind deafens my voice. I see her wave back at me and I realize she sits behind a window. The window to my home, I’ve made it home to my wife and she’s smiling at me through the window. 

The blizzard that started up so suddenly leaves as quickly as it came. And as the snowflakes cease painting these endless possibilities, I too cease to witness their splendor. I stare out the window at the glittering snow that shimmers like a lake of diamonds. I could have been so many different people had I not been born myself. The freezing winter air blankets the ground with a thin sheet of ice, it tells me no story as of yet.

My breath fogs up the glass on the window and I wipe it away quickly so I may not miss another beautiful story. But my breath fogs up the glass again and again till I can no longer look out the window. My breath comes out short and heavy and my brows furrow and my voice becomes gruff. I slap the window out of frustration; the frosty glass stings my hand and I recoil in shock. Upon the perfectly plain white window my handprint remains imprinted on its surface. My feet move on their own and before I can become fully aware of it, I’m standing at the entrance of my home with the door ajar. The frozen unpainted snow calls out to me, begging for a new story to be told. 

I take a deep breath and without looking, I let go of the door frame and tentatively break the ice coating the pristine snow.