So, I wrote something but it's only touching snow at the very end, it's bloody and it's too long. I wrote something about Christmas' Eve but let's say Just About is not the place to share it. I wrote something about skiing and something about relathionships but no. I wrote something sci-fi with snow but it was too short... or maybe not?
Soundtrack: 2 8 1 4 - Rain Temple
Snow flitted down from the steel grey sky high above.
It reflected the lights and neons of the sprawl. The same lights that painted the clouds above.
It bounced between steel, glass and plastic as it went down, slipping in between the tall skyscrapers.
It floated on the warm updrafts that moved up from the lower levels, from the exhausts and the air exchange vents.
It slowly sat down on the stained concrete and the dark asphalt, on the plexiglass and composites of vehicles, on the stands selling this or that, on the tarps hang between narrow alleys, on the cardboards of the despondent.
It sat in silence, slowly darkening at the contact with the stains of the world, slowly melting as it absorbed the warmth of civilization.
People walked hurriedly in the streets, hiding under jackets and umbrellas, the snow an inconvenience at worst, just a weather event at best.
Gone was the fascination of it.
Gone were the days when snow was seen as a beautiful moment, shrouding the world in cold fluff.
Gone were the days when children played with it.
Gone were the days when snow meant a hot brew and a cozy book.
Snow was now something negligible in the greater movement of civilization. Barely acknowledged, barely accounted for.
Inconsequential.
And yet, she looked up at the sky, her dark eyes tracking the small crystals as they fell toward her. She stood there, in an empty park. Not a real park, more like a recreation of what used to be a park, nested in between buildings, decaying in silence.
Nobody was around, nobody had the time to dwell and stand in the cold and wet, didn’t they? But she did, she didn’t have to rush to work, she didn’t have to rush anywhere in fact. Did that make her free? Not really.
But the snow didn’t really care about civilization’s problems, qualms and beliefs. It just fell when the humidity, temperature and winds were right. It was a purely mechanical process, no emotions, no expectations.
She kept looking up, in some way mesmerized by these little ice crystals flitting down the sky. So small, so beautiful in their own unique way. A beauty long lost to utilitarianism and economic interests in a civilization that sought money above everything else.
A small snow crystal sat down on the palm of her hand, it lasted a breath, just the time to take stock of it, that it melted. Her hands felt increasingly cold and yet, they were still warm enough to melt the snow, to turn it into a water drop.
Her breath puffed in the air as she exhaled.
The moment felt peaceful.
The sprawl, with all its noises and crowds, sounded far away. Not even there.
She inhaled the cold air.
Even the scents of the sprawl felt dulled, cleaner.
The snow still had the powers of old, they had just been forgotten by men in their pursuits for more.
She sighed, her head falling down, looking back down at the dirtying snow and the cracked concrete peeking through. For all the power the snow could still have, it wouldn’t really save her. That was the hard, inescapable truth.
She shrugged, and turned, heading out of the park, back to sprawl. Back to its crowds and its scents. Back to its dirt. Back to a life she couldn’t escape. Back to the rough reality.
A gust of wind made the falling snow twirl, some of those flakes following in her wake. It was as if the spirit of snow, if something like that could exist, sighed watching her leave, with her head down, beaten and hopeless. By itself, snow couldn’t do much but inspire.
Snow kept flitting down from the sky.
It rested over the uncaring sprawl, covering it all in a cold, dirtying blanket.
