last night
I’m walking uphill. It’s quiet. Cold. Still snowing but it’s tiny glitter flakes, too small to feel, they just catch the fading light for an instant and are gone. The fallen snow is ankle-deep powder and instead of taking big steps I drag my feet. If I looked back I could see two long lines that are my footsteps, the trail of where I’ve been. The street is steeper than I remembered. I should have brought a sled, if only for the ride back down again. I should have brought a camera, why didn’t I bring a camera? It’s so beautiful, so silent. A snowplow passes me, whirring through the empty road, its headlights in the dusk the brightest things I can see. When it’s gone it’s even quieter than before. The panic, for a moment, is dead inside me. I feel numb. Everything in me is muffled by the weather. I reach the top of the hill, turn the corner, keep going.