We Are Who We Are

It’s so terribly cold. Snow is falling, and it is almost dark. Something undoubtedly blue and black, bruised, scared, creeps around you in a way that weary souls do; the air feels old and afraid in that way.

Someone calls your name. You don’t hear them, do you? You think that’s your name.

Come on!

He's calling for you. You find yourself drawn to his voice, his stature, his appearance. The man’s face feels comforting. It’s familiar, isn’t it? The way he lays his hand on your shoulder as you follow him. He slows his pace for you. He cares. His thumb kneads into your shoulder which aches, tense from long hours of work, though you’re not sure what you have to show for it. Just the pain, probably.

The feeling of the man’s hand on your shoulder is clear while the world around you blurs. He blurs. His voice is faint but that’s only your perception. You know there’s a stern confidence to its cadence. Let’s go home.

Where is home? Should you know? You walk on cobblestone— or is that pavement— and it is cold against your feet, bare of shoes that should be there. His hand is warm. It’s not warm enough.

Your family is waiting, he says. The street lights don’t light up his face, you wish you could see, could tell what this familiar feeling in your chest is, and why he gives it to you. Is he your family? Is he one of the people waiting? Did his face light up with joy when he found you, does he love you that much, that deeply, that he cares so perfectly? Your mother has dinner waiting. Soup, I know you love that.

Do you love soup? You think you could love soup. It sounds warm when you are not, and that is enough to convince you you could love anything warm, anything fulfilling, because when you are not fulfilled, you will take fulfillment from anywhere you can get it. You will learn to lick love off knives when it is not fed to you on a silver spoon. You will learn to take fulfillment from strangers who feel familiar, but you cannot name. You will learn to love soup even if you aren’t sure that you do, because soup is warm and you are not warm.

For that reason, you reply, I do, with a voice that feels foreign. Your mouth moves and your tongue forms words, but they do not feel like yours. You don’t know what would.

Your sisters have been complaining that you aren’t home to play with them. What were you going to play? Your little brother, he’s been trying to act like you. It’s quite funny, actually. How is your brother acting? What are you like? What does he copy?

We all missed you.

His hand moves from your shoulder. Where did it go? The place where his hand was turns cold— colder, colder than it was before he put it there. The feeling in your shoulder changes, is something bitter and hurt, compared to the rest of your body. It hurts more than the rest of your frozen body does.

I missed you too, you say, though you’re not sure why. You think you do, miss him, that is, at least the thought of him. You miss the thought of this man you don’t know, you miss his hand on your shoulder, you miss how he talks about soup and family even though you never knew you could miss it.

You miss so much, so much you never knew, and it might not be him who you miss, but he’s the closest you can get, so you miss him when you have nothing else tangible to miss.

A home that is bright and loud, and should be warm, greets you. People smile. You smile too, you think, though it’s no more real or tangible than the people around you. A woman. Her face is round, kind. Two little girls who are a few inches shorter than you, squealing, touching you, hugging you, and are gone in an instant. A boy the same height as the girls smiles at you. You try, try so hard to smile back, and you think you must. You are guided along towards the smell of food.

You’re stuffed full of soup, of laughter, of people who love you. You can see their love. You cannot feel it. 

The house is lit up, it still does not feel warm. Maybe it is, but you do not know. You cannot be warm. The warmth is there, waiting, begging. It fills everyone around you but you know, somehow, that you cannot be warm. The night goes on and the faces of these people fade, the color around the edges of your vision turns dark.

You stare out the window. It snows. You aren’t sure how badly, but you know that white moves, it ebbs and flows, you know it is there, and you know in this house you should be safe from the snow, yet you do not feel safe.

Your shoulder still feels bitter where your father had his hand, was it minutes ago? Hours? Meals pass. The snow doesn’t stop. The darkness doesn’t falter. The light in this house fizzles out until your little sisters move slowly, until your brother sits down and doesn’t stand up, until your mother’s cooking tastes like ash and your father stops smiling.

Who are we? you ask the man you think was your father, once. He does not answer quickly, but his lips move. His eyes don’t meet yours.

We are who we are. We cannot change that.

I want to, you say. I don’t want to be this. I want to be warm.

You cannot be warm.

Why not?

It falters. It always falters.

You think you could have been warm, once. You know they were. Why aren’t they now? Did you do this to them?

No, your father says. Nobody did anything. We just are.

We just are, you repeat.

Yes. We just are.

But who are we?

We are who we are.

If things could warm up, you think, maybe you would know who you are. Maybe your father would too. Maybe soup would taste good. But maybe if you are warm, you are not you. Maybe, if you change, if you take this lack of warmth and warm it up, you will lose it, and the bitter feeling on your shoulder will spread like a disease, devouring every inch of you until you suddenly wish to just be cold again, because cold is so much easier to handle. 

You cannot lose it, you think. You cannot lose anymore warmth.

The snow doesn’t stop falling. You don’t try to make it; you don’t want it to.