The Stranger

Into The Tempest.

The winter had not started yet, nor had the autumn completely departed; thence, the snowfall at this time of the season had a mixed essence of two.
Earlier this evening, just before the dusk, when the sky had obscured a sudden overcast of dark, inky clouds, it had also conjured up vivid shades of crimson and green beyond the conifers warning the awaited. And here it was, a silent rebel of snow storming the town. Invading it.

Grace, from the huge window of her room watched the first fall with a small cup of tea in her hand, thanking the heaven at the same time, that she was home before the storm befell.

The down street was lifeless now, devoid of any being and covered in a white quilt of perpetual snow. It was so lonesome out there that it became almost an immediate impossibility to believe that there were coaches running along and trades being made right here, not half an hour ago.

But as lonely as it came out there, it was lonelier within.

Grace, with a history, knew the hazards of this fall. First fall of rain. And that of snow. They were always damaging to the body, unsafe and not to be caught into. Afterwards, they were clean. Walkable in.

Drenchable in.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck nine with a ringing opus and Grace swiftly downed the lasts of her now cold tea, in a go; putting it away as she began to pull down the curtains and that was when something caught her eyes.

Someone.

A phantom haunting the hazy sidewalk?

Grace narrowed her eyes.

It was a man. Material, not shadow.

A tall, dark figure was tumbling around in the street. The sight was not much comprehensible from this far, in the dark but his sharp silhouette and black-clad body spoke significance. The closer Grace looked, the more she realized that he was having trouble in walking.

"Is he drunk?" She wondered absentmindedly, in an uncertain whisper, her eyes glued to the scene.

It left her greatly ill at ease to think that this man_ any man would be so precariously drunk in the face of such inclement weather with a certain prospect of ending up in some roadside barrage to be snow trodden all the while till morning.

She wanted to shrug it off, this uneasiness but couldn't, since she was too candid when it came to someone's wellbeing. Anyone's, that was.

Leaning on the frosty window, she tried to make out more of the situation but it only deepened her concern. She soon realized that the man was not drunk but damaged. His steps clarified it. Not of irresolute kind as a drunken man would have had; those were determined steps misdirected due to some physical incompliance. And suddenly the man was lying flat on the ground, his face buried into the snow and body unmoving, as that of a dead.

Reverence broken, Grace was already out of her room, down the stairs, across the corridor at the main entrance. Pulling the door ajar, she stepped out into the snow. And contrary to all her hopes, no passerby had come to help him by for none were there. The whole vista down street was bare, not a soul in sight except the one lying lifeless by the roadway.

In the hail, it was hard to stride across the garden and harder yet to reach the man for all the slippery cobblestones but she managed steadily. The man was still lying all the same as when her eyes had left him but thankfully, she realized on proximity, that he was still breathing.

Hesitantly reaching out, Grace touched him by shoulder. He obliged no movement.
With all her strength, Grace tried to straighten the man, to make him lie on his back now. So she could make a better assessment. But the brutal, cold and confounding wind, his weight as a whole and the effort to stay upright opposed to the storm had her gasping for breath by the time she managed that.