It was supposed to snow later in the morning, the sky already heavy with the color of white and gray...low to the horizon and behind the sun it was tainted slightly whiter.
And when it started it was those first tentative flakes...shy, almost reluctant to fall. Like summer lightning bugs they drifted slowly, occasionally...individually. The streets were not cold enough to gather so these tiny pebble-like flakes melted upon landing.
She glanced outside and the grass was still dormant and uncovered by any white...her mind was cluttered and she needed the snow to cover...whiten her space...blanket her world and make it beautiful.
By the afternoon it had started, the flurries accompanied by wind...the flakes a persistence and the roads were speckled...slowly erasing the color of the streets and car tires made sleek parallel lines of black. She had something sparkling in her glass...it was cold and bubbly and she sipped slowly, and it slightly tickled her nose as she tilted the drink. She started feeling a little more relaxed...like deflating something tightly wrapped around her and now it started loosening...slightly. There were bits and pieces of the lawn still poking through and sidewalks were not covered...
She thought of something he had once told her...about her...describing her as a snow in his world...regardless of season, or time...that she touched and fell upon him and hid his worries, his anxieties...he had said she was like a snow at night...that he could see without any lights and detect the beauty blanketing the outside...and when he turned on a light it was teeming with a view that he could never accurately recount. She wasn't sure if she liked the comparison to wintry precipitation but as she watched it falling now she understood the peacefulness he was describing...and she warmed at the thought of this sensation being compared to her. She let the afternoon devolve into the whitening of the lawns and the streets...and the quiet...the almost forgetful behavior of a snowstorm until you are in it...the comfort of the quietness.
That evening she had moved onto a red wine...drifted through the empty house with the lights off as the night skies turned the outside into a deep blueish room.
She remembered his words again and understood the view of the white veil outside against the dark...it was a layer of smoothness, a single stroke of color and her mind was finally in a place where she felt calm...
Maybe it was the wine...but maybe it was the lack of distractions...the world outside was literally black and white...an easy consumption...a simplicity...she felt rested...or at least restful.
Later...before going up to bed she poured herself her final drink...a bourbon over a piece of ice...she turned off the kitchen light and the world went back to the black and white again...she took a sip and felt the warming caramel warm her mouth and her throat...
Remembering again his words she went to the front door, with its big glass pane and looked outside. She felt for the light switch and flipped it up...the lights exploding with a million flakes, blowing and billowing in the wind, it was mesmerizing, almost like flying in space, the snow ten billion stars and she was light...she was air...she was lifted and she was beautiful.
She remembered his words...smiled...and turned off the light.
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