The Snowchapel

The darkness in which I lay is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got there or what to do. I look and look around me, but all I see is the kind of black you could only imagine. It is so dark and serene, one would only think that there would be a glimmer or a reflection, but it is just pure nothingness. I can’t even tell if I am standing or floating. I don’t know where is up or where is down, where is north, south, east, or west. Suddenly, I feel a light breeze brush upon my skin from behind. I close my eyes and think about what I love. When I open my eyes, I am suddenly back to her on that day in the snow. 

She always liked a snowy beach, but I could never understand why. Then again, I never could quite understand her or her world she so desperately wanted to live in. She always said she liked the cold, but she was always so cold her nose turned pink. But, when the sun was out, she opened up like a flower, took a deep breath, and sang. She looked like she belonged in the sun, but she did nothing but long for the snow. That’s what it was like with her, always wanting what we couldn’t have. But I miss those sunny days. I miss those cold days. I miss her pink nose caught in the snow. We begin to walk.

I feel the snow crunching under my feet. The snow had been frosted over so whenever we took a step we sunk a little deeper into the hollowness below us. I remember step after step after step and word after word after word. I wanted nothing more than to be with her for eternity. I always imagined heaven like this; soft, white, and side by side with someone from whom I’d never want to be apart from. I thought it would go on like this forever, but I guess that forever had an end.

 I can still smell her, like a floral wood. Her smell surrounds me and corners me until I can’t take it anymore. I close my eyes, I count to ten, I exhale. It doesn’t help. I can’t help but think of her, the way her name sounded rolling off my tongue, the way she always looked behind on the beach to see her footprints, her impact. I remember our last day here. She was always looking back and down to see her steps. She had a pattern, for a minute she would look down and for 30 seconds she would look back. This continued and continued until she stopped. 

Do you want to build a snowcastle? Sure.

I remember she had always loved to build snowcastles. Much better than sand, as she would say. Her argument was along the lines of cleanliness, it wouldn’t get in your hair or clothes or get so easily stuck on you. And I like the snow, is how she would commonly end her rampage about the pointlessness of sand. The one we built that day looked more like a snowchapel than a snowcastle. There were beautiful stained glass windows that she added and built as tall as the eye could see. I began imagining going there to worship. I walked down the icy halls as the sun showed through the thinly layered windows. I reached the altar and I looked at the beautiful stained glass window behind it. The display was of our Lady of Sorrows, but all I could see was her beautiful face and her pink nose. I couldn’t shake it. I looked up to try to find God, but all I could see was her face. I closed my eyes and all I could see was her. I couldn’t help but worship her, for who could? Her beauty was unmatched. Everything about her was god-like. Whenever I imagine an angel, all I can see is her. Her beautiful, glowing face. 

The snowflakes began to create a halo on her head. Then, she began to walk. She normally did nothing but talk, but today she was silent. 

 We were walking, still, slowly, leaving our footprints in the snow. I could’ve walked the world with her, even if it was just in silence. Her breaths were always soft and light, but I could hear them from miles away. I memorized her breathing pattern: in two, out three. She never needed much air inside of her to make an impact, her words were always so meaningful. As we walked, I kept track of her breathing. In-two, out-two-three, in-two, out-two-three. I remember looking down and seeing our walking patterns syncing up. Right, left, right, left. I kept track of it all. Right in-two, left out-two, right three-in, left two-out. I tried to memorize every little detail about her that day. 

As we were walking along, she suddenly stopped again, this time saying nothing. I turned around and looked at her. She just stared at me. There was a hollowness behind her eyes, but there was worship behind mine. She broke her breathing pattern. I asked her if anything was wrong. She stood and she cried. I walked back towards her. She ran away. I called for her. I called for her over and over and louder and louder, but her footsteps stretched into infinity, until they disappeared.

I looked down and I saw the darkness I was once in, contained in a square. When I looked back up, I realized where I was. It was a game of chess. I tried to look at the queen that opposed me, but all I could see was her face. I looked around and I saw rooks and knights and bishops floating around, playing the game. There was no felt on their bottoms like on the pieces in the games I used to play. Suddenly, I started flying with the pieces. I got thrown away, off the board, forced to watch the game from afar. I sat there and I watched. I watched her win. I realized she didn’t need me, so I walked away. 

I figure that’s how I got here. Walking in an unfamiliar dark room is not an easy thing to do. I wander aimlessly, trying to find something that looks even a little bit familiar, besides that chess board, but I find all that I know is her. All I see are her emotionless eyes on me and I feel like sinking into what I think is the floor. I reach up to try to get them to notice me, to try to get them to feel something, but I can’t. The higher and higher I reach the more and more I cry. Suddenly, I reached the top. I realize that the sky is plush and moveable, so I decide to pull it down. 

And once again, I am in my bed, but something is off. The bed looks like mine, but it’s not. The posters are aligned like mine, but these aren’t my walls. This isn’t me. I’d like to think that my personality is something that I’ve curated from the movies I’ve watched and the music I’ve listened to. But I now realize that I had just curated my personality for her. Nothing I had was mine or representative of the me that I truly belonged to. Everything was a fragment of her, no matter how small or distant.

Now, I realize there was one word she never said that I repeated over and over again. She seemed to think that “Like” was a synonym, allowing her to find it easy to replace me. To her, it was nothing but a placeholder. To me, it was a fantasy, it was all just a sweet dream.