Snow

The first few flakes began to swirl from the low dark clouds as evening 
descended. Everywhere people were getting ready for the holidays. They 
laughed over stemming cups of cocoa, reminiscing on old times. Childrens' 
breath fogged up shop windows as they gazed at the merry displays within. 
The world seemed happy and bright. But high above, in a building of brick 
and glass, a less happy moment played itself out, far from the warmth and 
friendliness the holidays inspired in so many.
	Cold, white, sterile. Like a winter's first frigid snow that coats 
everything in gleaming desolation. That was the room; that was her heart. 
And yet, what did those facts matter now? He would never open his eyes upon 
either again in this world. The man who lay motionless in the bed was 
beyond caring about such trivialities. She had told them to remove the 
tubes and wires; told them he wouldn't have wanted to live like this. They 
had done as she asked, not because they really cared what he would or would 
not have wanted, but because they had no choice. They left only one monitor 
running, it's steady tone the only indication that any life remained in him.
She stood, looking down at his still face wishing she had something to say. 
Her benumbed mind could make no sense of the place she found herself in now,
and she did not seek understanding. Her chilled hand brushed across his 
brow fleetingly, like the kiss of a fall breeze. There was no sound but the 
incessant regularity of the monitor beeping at the bedside. Her thin form 
retreated to her chair by the hospital bed, and collapsed into it's 
uncomfortable embrace. There were no flowers here; they had long since 
faded and died. No monuments to testify that life had once existed within 
them both. The room was devoid of personal touches and memories. What 
ornamentation was needed in a death-chamber, from who's depths no one 
emerged alive? Even those who still lived and breathed were not truly alive 
when they left this sterile place. They were empty inside with no means to 
fill the bitterly cold chasm that ate away at them. Her lips trembled and 
she hugged herself in a vain struggle to stop the shaking. But the tremor 
spread outward so that her whole form shivered uncontrollably. 
            Outside the door there was the bustle of an institution devoted 
to saving lives. It was another world to her, separated by an unbridgeable 
gap she had no hopes of crossing. Could those outside see her? Could they 
somehow penetrate the barrier between their colorful realm and her frigid 
wasteland? What did they think of this wide-eyed girl; the only witness to 
her love's passing?  Tears dripped large from her wild staring eyes and 
splashed on her white hands. "Look forward with those bright dying eyes..." 
The words came dry and monotone from her parched lips. The monitor beeped 
on.
            She was only scarcely aware of the nurses that occasionally 
penetrated the barrier into her winter-world, murmuring words of false 
concern and pity. They didn't intrude on her morbid vigil.  In the 
beginning she hadn't believed it. And once it had sunk in, she had wanted 
nothing better than to scream, curse, throw herself at the walls and 
demand to know just what in hell God thought he was doing. Such tragedies 
didn't happen to people like her. She had been young and happy, in love and 
at the start of a life full of promise. In one fell swoop, she'd had it all 
taken away, and although the little voice of reason cried out that she was 
being selfish, that she wasn't the one dying after all, she just couldn't 
take it at it's word. In all that time, going through his slow decline to 
the grave, she hadn't cried. Not once. She had been his pillar of strength, 
the one he could always depend on. But one glance at the bedside said he 
didn't need her anymore.
Now, she couldn't even move.
            Snow fell outside among the bright holiday lights and busy 
shoppers. Carolers sang on the streets, but she couldn't hear them.  
Despite all the activity, it seemed the city's walls were closing in, hard 
and dead, upon her. And yet, at the same time, it all seemed so delicate, 
so very breakable. She wanted to open the window wide, to cry out to all 
those on the streets below, "Embrace this moment, for you never know when 
you may lose it." But she did not. Inside her frosty cell, there was 
nothing but the noise of the monitor who's tone seemed to grow louder with 
each beat, though they came slower every minute. She stared outward, not 
really seeing, just listening to the steady decline in the rate of the 
monitor, a dangerous decrescendo that signaled the imminence of death. She 
didn't move, but a year's worth of pent up tears flowed from her eyes. She 
fancied it was so cold that they should have formed snowflakes as they 
fell; that she could become the blizzard that had so arrantly blown into 
the spring of her life. But they didn't, and the monitor's tones now came 
infrequently, almost laboriously. 
            When they stopped altogether, she didn't call anyone. She 
didn't even hold his hand as he passed. It was, she knew, cold and 
lifeless. What did he see now? Were their angels waiting for him with open 
arms, ready to take him to a place of warmth and light? There was no one 
for the lost girl, an icy, fragile shadow of her former self. No one to 
comfort her as she cried in the white room all alone.