Black snow...

There was a little snow last night. I opened the front door and there it was, flake on flake, falling on the ground, settling white. Night time snow, sparkling under the street light. The kind of snow that might be gone by morning or might mean waking to a winter wonderland.

These days I think I like the idea of snow more than snow itself. Gone are the days that I’d rush to build a snowman, start a snowball fight, go rushing down the hill on a sledge. I still try, but the cold soon defeats me and my joints aren’t quite what they used to be. I used to build igloos, places where small daughters could play Eskimo. There was a time I’d fearlessly ride the tiniest tin tray down the steepest hill. I’d rough and tumble in a snowball fight, taking a well thrown ball of snow compounded ice in the face, laughing until I fell over.

These days I simply like to watch the snow fall through the window, the roar of a log fire behind me and the twinkling light of candles to make it all nostalgic. What lies. Not white but the blackest black. I pour myself another and then a final glass of wine and then a final final glass. I think, remembering. And then another, and just one more.

The snow was still falling when I stumbled the wooden hill to bed. As I went deep into the covers I remember thinking that I wished the snow would fall and fall, covering the world in a blanket of white, then fall some more, and on and on until every mark that had ever been made were covered in a pristine white. Everything gone; disappeared beneath the suffocating whiteness of a winter’s night and everything made pure.

When I awoke this morning the snow was gone - not my memories though.