Where the Cold Meets the Heat

She had never understood the female social construct of gossip, so it was unexpected for her to find herself here on an afternoon distinguished by the heat in the middle of a gossip circle. She sat awkwardly at the outskirts as far away as she could manage. The white washed walls were illuminated with stark yellow lights allowing her little solace and no shadows to hide away in. Plastering on a smile and nodding along to the clacking of the choppy and hastily whispered conversation. It was as though the gossiping girls believed the people they were discussing would hear their malicious words or appear all of a sudden in a range, murder in their eyes.

She wished she could fade into the wall at her back or that she could simply melt away from the heat warming her skin. It made each one of her breaths seem laboured, as though her lungs were being weighed down by the thick air. Her mouth seemed parched, her tongue felt heavy, dried up by the heat caking and crackling her throat with each difficult breath. Everything felt a little too close and a little too irritating. Her eyes wandered to the window opposite as her ears tuned into the cicadas humming loudly outside. The frame was slightly ajar allowing soft wisps of the summer air to brush through the structure and gently make its way over to play on her skin. The touch was cooling and reminded her of a place she welcomed much more. She excused herself and wandered outside opening the door and becoming encased in the dim blue light of a dying day as the cooler air refreshed her breaths.

***

He had never liked the cold, especially this cold. He could feel it in his bones as the soft white flakes fell around him catching and landing on everything and anything. It was a nuisance. His nose was a frozen red to match his cheeks and his breath billowed out in white puffs while he rubbed his gloved hands together to attempt to gather some warmth on the late night. The darkness stretched on, up and down the nearly empty blue-lit streets, while the soft snow fell beneath his feet. He trudged on. He shivered, he felt isolated and sterile, unaccompanied on his trek homeward. Numbed fingertips and toes ached while he wished he was in the warmth of the indoors. The only heat within his reach was inside him, in the blood pumping within his veins. The snow continued to fall as one snowflake landed on the back of his collar and began to melt, sending a cool drizzle down his neck. This made him smile and glance up to the falling flakes as they fell, landed and sometimes melted when the cold met the heat. These small displays of warmth reminded him of her. Up ahead a small fire was throwing off heat to a small gathering of people at a coffee store. Little sparks picked up and flew into the cold quickly disappearing and starting again. A soft wind blew some of the warmth his way as he managed to get closer. The fire licked away the cold, thawing his skin and bringing a livelier blush to his cheeks. A smile returned to his lips as the fire embodied her in front of him. He picked out his phone from his pocket.

***

Awkward hellos were mumbled while the phone sent and received the messages clumsily between the far away places merging and echoing until a proper connection was made and a third place was created; one that can only be formed when they were together, where the heat cooled to a happy in between. The conversation settled to a slow pace interrupted by gentle laughs and crinkling eyes. Their smiles were evident in their voices, separated by an innumerable distance bought together in sound. The cool of the nightfall took away the heat from the day. The stars and streetlights illuminated her sight in a dull blue light. Her skin had cooled to a perfect in-between as she talked, finding solace in the darkening sky.

He took off his gloves as the feeling returned to his fingers and toes, the warmth of the conversation dispelled the cold and the dark. The narrow paths reaching between buildings and up and down the streets seemed more lively, laughter echoing between the street lights dispersing the shadows, chasing away some of the dark. He felt less alone as his body grew warmer and his smile, wider just listening to the chattering of her voice. The sterile, cold smell of the snow had been replaced with the scent of the steamy coffee brewing in the cosy store behind him. His body had warmed and his cloak and scarf had been discarded, the warmth of the flames and the conversation eliciting a smile and a shine to his eyes.