Thaw

Thaw

Slowly, tentatively, it danced.

In the shadow of the night, in the embrace of a darkness that seemed to eat up all traces of light, it danced. One of many kindred, sixfold symmetry simplifying yet obfuscating its geometry, it twirled down through the air, currents pulling it to and fro and granting the illusion of sentience. Of purpose. Of meaning.

It danced, and it danced, and it danced.

Then, irrefutable, inevitable – the ground. The end. Finale.

Oblivion.

There was no encore. Upon impact, the snowflake became indistinguishable. Simply one of hundreds. Thousands. Millions.

One out of five.

A frigid wind blew through the open street, striking at the bones of all who walked its length. A coat, drawn tighter. A scarf, pulled over a mouth. Retreat. Recess. Multitudes, rushing to get home, to escape the night.

Yet, the cold was belied by the warmth of the light which had sprung up along the length of the street. Rows upon rows upon rows of fairy lights, strung together from lamppost to lamppost to lamppost. In a sense, they were almost rhythmic; their repetition, their regularity, their symmetry... there was something comforting about them.

They felt eternal.

Her hands were cold.

She'd been waiting for a while. Ten minutes? No, it was closer to fifteen now.

He wasn't late.

Yet.

People were streaming by, sectioned off into ones and twos, singlets and doublets and more that seemed in their hordes to all blend together. They were moving, and she was still.

She breathed. Her breath hung in the air, visible in the frosty night. Warmth, crystallized by its contact with the cold. She watched it dissipate, equilibrating away into nothingness.

Above her head, the dull ticking sound of a clock, perched at the top of a long pole. Around it, accoutrements of plants and rocks and all sorts of beautifying pleasantries – silently, she wondered if the greenery would survive the snowfall. Turning, her fingers ran across their leaves, down their stems.

So fragile; yet, there was something defiant about the flowers that bent under the slowly accumulating snow. They were bowed, but not broken.

Another breath.

Overhead, the clock ticked on.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Seven o'clock.

The people around her were like water, flowing past in chaotic and turbulent flow. Subconsciously, she drew closer to the frozen flowers behind her; protecting them. Guarding them from the wilderness of their surrounds.

A single finger, wiping away the snow.

Cold.

She looked up, her cheeks red. Another breath, warm. The hands of the clock, slowly turning moment by moment. The time seemed to be crawling, growing agonizingly slower by the second. By the minute. By the year, by the decade, by the century...

By the second.

She looked back down at the flowers, and a quiet feeling, tenuous, sprung up within her breast.

Now he's late.

Even with the snow swept away, even with their burden relieved, the flowers remained bent. The removal of the weight was insufficient to return them to how they'd once been. As her finger gently ran along the petals, she could feel the unease in her chest growing stronger.