The Snow Angel

The Snow Angel

Sammy couldn't stand the lights. It had only been a few minutes since she forced herself out of the house and she already yearned to turn around and go back inside. It was the only place she felt safe anymore; buried deep beneath a bright red comforter between two large body pillows. She felt she could stay there forever, maybe even die there, but something cryptic kept her here—at least that's what she told her therapist during their last session.

Sammy used to love the holidays. Every year it made her blossom into a giddy child, eager to see the magic the season could bring. Now she couldn't stand seeing the lights, or the dull decor in every house window on her block. She scoffed, wallowing in her own boots coated with crunchy snow that slowly melted into the suede fabric. Her toes felt like tiny ice cubes. She kept asking herself why.

Why was she doing this? Why put herself through all of this?

She kept replaying the words over and over again in her mind: "Sammy, you have to get out of the house. Start slow, take a walk through your neighborhood! Go take a look at some pretty lights and fun blow-up Christmas decorations, and if you hate it at least you could say you tried."

Sammy rolled her eyes and continued dragging her feet, not even bothering to lift them above the snow. She often thought about finding a new therapist, one that could understand her grief and not challenge her to silly mundane tasks like taking a walk in eight inches of snow. She scoffed again and turned around. "This is so stupid," she muttered to herself as she trudged her way back to her house.

Just before her front porch came into sight, she heard a familiar chomping of snow just a few feet behind her. She turned back around to the spot she had just come from and saw a man. He was dressed in a long wool coat, buttoned to the top with a beautifully knitted burgundy scarf protecting half of his face. Judging by the wrinkles around his eyes—the only thing Sammy could see, he had to be anywhere from 70 to 80 years old.

She searched the snow for other shoe prints but found nothing. She peered up to every front door she could see from there but each house had a freshly laid blanket of snow, undisturbed.

'Where could he have come from?' She thought. It was as if he had fallen from the sky, or crawled out of the sidewalk concrete, but Sammy knew neither were possible. He stood where she had just been, and she couldn't recall any sound of opening doors or saw anyone else out in the neighborhood. The air felt still and eerily quiet as he stood there, appearing to stare at her. Before she could turn around and continue the walk back to her house, the old man raised a hand out of his coat pocket and waved. She wondered if maybe she knew him from somewhere, or if she had spotted him around the neighborhood before.

But nothing came to mind.

Officially creeped out, she raised her hand and waved back, ready to spin around and head for home until he spoke.

"Hello, Sammy." He said as he stuffed his other hand into his coat pocket. She caught her breath in her chest and squinted her eyes. She couldn't find anything she recognized about the old man, but something intrigued her. She looked back, able to see the fence around her porch, knowing that sweet sweet solitude and dreary grey walls awaited to hold her close again. But something was keeping her there, the thought that she might know the old man and didn't want to be rude, and the fact that he knew her name.

Without thinking any more on it she marched toward him, this time picking her feet up from the snow and stomping her way back down the sidewalk until he was a few feet in front of her. Now she could see the small liver spots on his rosy cheeks and the small white hairs he still had left on his head.