Snow

dVerse Prosery November 6th, 2023

We were to write a flash fiction story in exactly 144 words including a line from the poem, by Rita Dove called “November for Beginners.” The chosen line was “Snow would be the easy way out.” See the Poets Pub here. And other works of flash prose here.

I grew up expecting snow every winter. Sometimes crunchy—always white until later when it would die as wet, ugly, slush. I loved going outside and experiencing feelings that I only felt when I walked on a cold windless night in fresh snow.

It was always coming, and I knew that snow would be the easy way out—out of my life’s tiring and tedious problems (at least for now), as my insecurities about myself were silently made insignificant. It could never be more than one night at a time before the world’s reality marred snow’s existence and mine.

The snow didn’t know or care about my problems. I was welcome to be as I was with snow. While it made my world go silent, it seemed to hear me and to know what I needed without ever saying a word. We had secrets.

I suppose this is interior monologue rather than a story, but it works for me.

 

Sammi’s Weekend Prompt 123 – Delicate

Sometimes, when it’s dark
and extremely cold,
you can go outside
into the wash of crystal clean mystery,
of frigid stillness soundlessly
covering your world,
perhaps luck will let you discover
the delicate beauty of freshly falling flakes
of glimmering clean dry ivory snow
seen by streetlights slowly drifting,
like tiny feathers floating down
to find fellows resting
on the ground or drifting
onto your warm hand,
there to melt and vanish,
or you may scoop some up
and with the soft warm vapor of your breath
gently sending angels
of transparent virgin weightless grains
of magic floating freely through
the colorless clean comfort of night.

Look both ways, up and down, mindful of gaps unseen.

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