Snow Dragon

He hated the cold. It always brought out the worst in him. The way it chilled him to the bones no matter how many layers he piled on. The way it crept into the corners of his home even with a roaring fire.

It was the jilted lover flaunting her success after leaving him by shoving it in his face whenever she saw him. It made him hate to leave his cabin for even the most basics of necessity. Like fire wood. 

Fire was the gluttonous demon that constantly needed to be fed. Without fire the cold became stronger and more oppressive. He hated the cold. And he hated it most of all on this day. 

He had been walking to chop some more firewood. To do that he had to cross a shallow creek behind his cabin. But today of all days was the day that he didn’t test the ice on the water carefully enough and he fell through.

Now he was cold and his feet were wet. The water stung him as it reached his skin. His toes soon felt like icicles on the end of his feet. He could go back to the cabin but then he would have no firewood for the evening.

So he plodded on. Hoping the movement would dry his boots out and work some warmth back into his lowest extremities. He was wrong. His boots became giant blocks of ice he was now dragging around behind him.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, it began to snow. A wet, heavy snow that soon soaked his coat through. Now the cold was wrapped around him like a blanket. It made every move sluggish as it tried to drag him down. 

He could almost hear the whisper of it. Taunting him to stop what he was doing and succumb. Succumb to the darkness. Succumb to the chill and the damp and the shivers that crept all over his body.

He refused to listen. He kept up the mechanical movement despite the cold’s tricks trying to slow his joints. He gathered his firewood and loaded it onto the sled he used to transport it back to the cabin.

He tested the ice a little more carefully on the return trip and was able to get across without getting more wet. 

Back at the cabin he stacked the wood just outside the door so it was within easy reach. Nothing worse than having to get fully dressed for battle just to get a few more pieces of firewood.

He went inside with a few of those pieces and stoked the flames in his fireplace before stripping of his wet gear. He hung everything on drying racks and spaced them around the fire to dry before putting on dry clothing.

With the morning chore done he set about making breakfast. It was lonely work, especially in the winter. He missed the days when he had someone to enjoy breakfast with. It was the reason the cold’s whispers were so enticing.

Oh she was still here in a way. The carving of a snow dragon sat upon his mantel. She loved dragons. The house they owned together before had been full of them. Statues of all sizes. This one had been her favorite. It was about a foot and a half tall with outstretched wings. It’s head was reared back with flames shooting out.

The part she loved the most was that it was ghost white and opalescent. The tips of the wings ended in glittering, shimmering claws. It was perched upon a snow covered rock. It was the only one he kept. It was a gift for her one Christmas. It was the only one he could stand to look at after everything.

He ate slowly staring at the statue. It was a stark contrast to the plainness of the rest of the cabin. He had given up everything they owned together to move out to the countryside. This was their summer cabin that he had made his home. He went to work. He did his chores. He survived.

All he had been doing since her was survive. Survive and stare at that dragon statue. He didn’t even have a TV out here. He read sometimes but mostly he just sat in silence. At night he shivered and cried himself to sleep.

In the morning he would wake up and repeat it all over again. Survival. Because she would want to know he was still living. If you could call it living. Six months and the only time he smiled was at work. ]It felt like putting on a mask. Just like masking up to go outside in the cold. It was a facade to his inner self. 

His co-workers thought he was handling everything exceptionally well. In reality he was falling apart. It was harder and harder to get up in the morning. And only her scolding him could get him out of bed.

He knew it was all in his head but he could hear her voice clear as day telling him to get up. Get the firewood. Make breakfast. Go to work. Eat lunch. She was a football coach in his ear telling him how to get by. He feared to think what might happen if she stopped talking to him.

Would he even get out of bed? Would the fire go out and he freeze to death. How long before anyone discovered him in the cabin. Only a few people knew it existed and no one had come out to check on him since he moved into it full time.

He sighed and stood up. Cleaned his breakfast dishes and turned his wet clothes over to dry the other sides of them. He added another log to the fire and sat in his favorite chair. It was her last gift to him. He would probably never get rid of it.

He picked up his favorite book. She had given it to him also. He had read it so much he had it memorized and hardly looked at the pages as he turned them. It was an exercise in futility. He thought about all he had lost in the last six months. If he wasn’t careful he would lose himself too.

At lunch time he set the book down again and made a sandwich. He washed it down with some water. The weekends like today were the hardest. He had nothing to do but sit and wallow in his self pity. Not even work to distract him anymore. What did he need to work for anyway? He didn’t need money for rent or electric. Food he could probably provide on his own. 

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Did it matter anymore? He sat bundled on the front porch sipping a mug of hot cider watching the light drift overhead and slowly fade away as the sun set behind him. He rarely went out back to watch the sunset anymore. That was her favorite thing to do and it brought up too many memories.

When it was too dark to see the trees near the edge of the clearing he went inside to eat dinner. Steak and potatoes. A simple meal for a simple man he thought. He ate mechanically and cleaned up the dinner dishes.

He stoked the fire before getting ready for bed. Tomorrow would be another day. Another battle with the cold. Another survival effort to stave off death just a little longer. Just until he felt she would not, could not be upset with him in the afterlife.

He just had to hang on a little while longer. Eventually the cold would be his friend. His new lover. He would welcome the cold’s embrace like his long lost love because he knew when that cold seeped in, it was time to see her again. That cold he welcomed into his bones. That cold he looked forward to.