Footprints in the Snow

The night is cold and clear, lovely and lonely. My breath comes in shudders and gasps as I climb the hill.

I can see my house from here. We have forgotten to put up Christmas lights, but the snow on the trees and our driveway is enough to signal the season. My roof, snuggled between a slope and a cliff, is eclipsed in white.

Blinking away a film of ice and exhaustion, I adjust my backpack, my shoulders numb. It is good to smell the fallow fields, the tinge of old manure. Inhaling, I taste pine on my frozen throat.

My feet slip on the half-broken crust and I fall, collapsing in an undignified tumble of coat and scarf and hat, trying to avoid landing on my laden back.

As I struggle upright, I see the sidewalk beneath me and smell the city’s smoke. My hands are full of gravel and glass. A stranger approaches in the unbroken line of my footprints, and I am too tired to walk anymore.