Drifting Through Time

Snow spirals down to the earth, flakes nonchalantly weaving through the cracked tree limbs to rest on the frozen ground. I imagine myself as one of them. What would I see? I would emerge fresh from the heavens and gently drift down, floating on the stiff winter air. Would I have a care in the world? Would I stop to think about the girl collapsed between the entwining tree roots before I landed on her cold cheek and faded away?

How did I even get here? All I remember is running. Fleeing my despair, hoping to lose myself in the forest. Maybe die in the silence of the snow.

But now I lie on my side staring with hollow eyes and wonder what the snow could mean. There had to be something more. For what is life without a mystery to be dreamt? A familiar song comes to my mind, and I find myself whispering the words through my cracked lips. My tiny voice is muffled by the falling snow, but it sounds so loud in my head. Every flake that hits the ground I hear. This time the song is different. I’ve sung it many times before, yet never wondered what the words meant. How could I not have understood before? They suddenly come to me, and their profoundness makes my eyes well up with tears. They’ll turn to frost soon.

It seems to me that in my agony I have reached a new level of mentality, a deeper insight, a philosophical enlightenment, as they might call it. I can see into a soul. I now know the true nature of life. Fleeting and evanescent. Ripped away so easily, even by one’s one hand.

That’s it. The snow is but our lives, drifting through time to die someday when we reach the end.

An image flashes through my brain. An image I’d hoped to forget. The belts made into a particular loop hanging from my best friend’s ceiling. And a worse sight hanging from it.

My own screaming has finally stopped echoing in my memory. Now it’s filled with words that I repeat like a prayer. I couldn’t help him.

Icy moisture begins to creep through my thin jacket, and it burns my skin. I crawl closer to the tree’s meager shelter. Shouldn’t I be numb by now? Physically, not just mentally?

I wonder how this paradox can occur, how my mind is unfeeling, yet I can absorb all the emotion around me like never before. I can hear the snowflakes softly whispering to me. Are they sympathizing with me, or just lamenting their own transient time on this earth?

Through the icy cold I feel a warm touch. I twist my neck with effort to look over my shoulder. She lies down beside me, with a thick woolen blanket to drape over my shivering body. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. She wipes them with her sleeve, but her sorrow is betrayed by her cracked, quavering voice.

“I’m here. It’s okay.”

She didn’t have to say anything more. The warm consolation of my best living friend beside me was enough for my dejected lips to curl into a feeble smile.

Silence reigns.

This time it’s filled with bittersweet understanding. Time will go on. Like the snow ever floating, ever spiraling downward through eternity.

Yes. I assure myself; Time will go on.