There was little to nothing around, except the sound of the wind and the gentle rustling of bare birch branches. White snow covered the ground while the white sky stretched wide in solidarity. Although the brook was covered with ice you could still hear the sound of its water trickling underneath. The crisp, clean, cold air had a texture like steel on my tongue, while the world gained a soft glow as I looked through my clouds of exhale. 

With the season, the gurgling laughter of common snipes had been replaced with the sweet chirps of fat thrushes. There were mountain ashes less than a mile away with plump berries for the birds red as their wings. I lay on a bed of snow, listening to their songs, wondering whether they were alarming one another about my presence through their composition. I untucked my fleece glove from my sleeve, pulled it off, pocketed it, and reached for the bag of chocolate biscuits my mom had packed me for my walk. After crumbling them up I threw them as far away from me as I could to watch the birds’ at first timid then giddy reactions. I could feel the snow sneaking into the collar of my sweater and begin to melt in the warmth of my back. I rolled on my stomach, taking a big bite off the snowy ground, chewing it while watching the birds feed. It wasn’t until they returned again to their branches that I got back on my feet and began retracing my footsteps back towards home.

There were still tall yellow straws sticking out from the ground. They seemed to me the last remnants of summer, the closest thing to wild flowers, so I started picking them. I imagined bringing home this yellow bouquet. If I gathered a big enough bunch I could bend it in half, tie it with string and adorn it in a skirt to create a little woman. It was a trick I had just recently learned, but it required quite a few straws. I assessed my loot to see whether I had enough, noticing bright red spots on the ground beneath them. Upon opening my grip I could see my blood had painted the straws. Their frozen stems had cut me with each pull without me noticing, blood staining my snowy white world. Now that I was aware of the blood, my palms felt hotter. I dropped my bouquet, straws floating gently down, scattering on the ground. I placed my palms in the fresh snow, creating two bloody imprints. They looked like two fat thrushes singing graces to one another.

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