9

“C-c-cold!! Ugh, cold, cold, cold, COLD!!” she shivered, teeth chattering and heart jumping as she stepped out into the icy morning air.

Yes, there was no mistaking it.

Winter had come in full force: The bitter Northwest winds that seemed to penetrate into one’s very bones, the perpetually moody, overcast January skies, and of course – what was Winter without the occasional falling of snow?

Snow – it was the first time she’d ever seen the falling of snow, and it delighted her to no end. But this morning, she hardly noticed her surroundings as she ran, her hurried footsteps echoing off the path that she was on.

Late as usual, and muttering a string of “It’s cold, it’s SO cold!!” in a permutation of various languages, she dashed through the winding roads towards her school looking, for the world, like the perpetually-late-for-first-period-Winter-classes student that she most unfortunately was.

However, as the soft, cotton-white dots began tumbling from the grey clouds in the early morning stillness, her hurried footsteps eventually slowed to a walking pace, as she tilted her head to the skies, in an attempt to embrace the falling snow.

And in the midst of pure silence, she realized, with a jolt, that her heartbeat was the only thing that could be heard. It’s one of those moments to remember, she mused to herself. Class instantaneously forgotten, her searching eyes observed the direction of the wind, and she found her feet automatically following the path of the falling snow to a nearby park. There, she seated herself on a creaky wooden swing, and began to observe the falling of “kona yuki” – powder snow.

After a long time, she took out a piece of paper – the paper she was supposed to write her report on – and allowed inspiration to breathe meaning into mere words.

Powdery white flakes dancing in the wind, as if being toyed with by the invisible hands of a Master Puppeteer. Taken wherever the wind chooses to blow; haphazard and helpless in all of its silent allure. Suspended – if only for the barest fraction of a moment, by the strong gales – only to hurtle once more in vulnerable spirals towards the cold, hard asphalt of reality. And in their descent, the falling snow drops inevitably lose their form, their pristine beauty, and hence shed the magic of their forbidden, transient waltz with the harsh Northwest winds. Trampled upon, by those who neither see nor care about that which does not last; and perceived, by those walking figures whose minds are set on far greater, more practical endeavours, as nothing more than a slippery danger to be rid of.

She replaced the cover of her pen cap and casually dropped it into the open pencil case that was on the ground beside her. The snow had stopped falling, and already little pools of melted snow were forming on the field that was before her. Staring at the paragraph that she’d just written, she smiled, for the first time that day. Little dots of white, fluffy snow were on her muffler, on her coat, in her hair… and even on her essay; blotting out the ink in tiny patches here and there.

Yes, it was freezing. And she must’ve been crazy to stay out alone in the field – skipping class in an attempt to crystallize the moment and encapsulate it in words. But it was worth it. She’d not written for a very long time… ever since then. She just never had the inspiration to. For the longest time, she only saw the black in a monochrome world, and the empty space in a half-filled container.

But now, as she reflected on the symbolism of the dance between the falling snow and the Northwest winds, she realized that perhaps – just perhaps – she was ready to accept both the fleeting beauty, and the permanent scars borne out of a relationship.

After all, like the fragile droplets of snow, sometimes people curiously find themselves falling, even if they never meant to.