Invoked with creative inspiration, I headed out into the snowy lesser known to photograph. Lacking in such in previous weeks (which is very unlike me), it is good to finally have purpose once again. I search for every candle I can find within my radius and end up with 8 candles in my arms. I add a lighter to the mix and push open the door to the very cold, very icy, fairly dark lesser known. The snow is hard and packed tight together like a family holding onto each other for dear life. My feet barely make a dent in the white precipitation beneath my feet as I choose a patch that is not as tainted by child and animal tracks far off from the comfort and warmth of my home. My vision is simple and set. Over and over in my head plays "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by stars. No stars are to be found tonight. The snow clouds have overwhelmed the sky and hidden them from the silent earth. the world is silent here. There is a perceived lack of color here. I know that in truth, white is all the colors mixed together.And I can't help but love the contrast between the dark sky and the white ground. The air's crisp scent strangles me if I inhale too deeply. It's like smoke, but clean. I breathe in deep, the cold air burning my nostrils and my chest stinging inside. My heart is heavy. As always, so lately it seems. Ever since I drove the lion off, I've felt nothing but a concave crater in my chest, deep and charcoaled, like a meteor's crater after hitting the fragile moon.
I set down my little ones, my lights on the ice. Clicking my lighter over and over in attempts to light them, the little ones do not last long. "Stay alive, please, stay alive" I whisper. They linger a bit, flames jumping about, trying to stay warm. In the same instant they are gone. Snuffed out by the heartless wind. Innocent lives, vanished. The three larger candles keep their fire, they stay lit. And it's all I can do to keep from going mad. They are my salve.
A simple degree of life in a world where innocent fish and children must die. Needless to say, I am unnerved. "God," I whisper in the cold "where are you?"
No answer. And I am only infuriated further. The heart that I gave to him is no more, and you're not even here to comfort me! What the Hell? There is no heart in my chest. It was taken when the lion left. I want it back but am too afraid to ask. I watch my little ones, my little flames. Their intoxicating dance leaves me tranquilized. I lie down on the cold ground, the ice and my face make contact and I realize that our temperatures are entirely too similar. Minutes feel like hours and hours like days. I don't even flinch. I feel my lips turning purple and my hands stiffening, arthritic from the frigid outside. Would you miss me if I died? A whispering wind winds through the trees to bite my face and strike my hands with an icy blow. I would love nothing more than to lie here. Just to see if someone, anyone, will come find me.
I seem to have fallen asleep on the ice outside. How on earth, I do not know. I realize, quickly where I am and arise. Every bone in my body ache from the cold but are at the same time numb. Somehow, numb to the point of pain. At any rate, I make my way back to my house, kicking up powdery precipitation as I go. I feel like a child again. A latchkey child as I had always been. Very introverted, very much a loner, very shy. My mind is void of thought, possibly all intelligible thought was frozen over with everything else. My hands are stiff as boards and completely lax in feeling. My heart sinks in realization of reality and just really wish I didn't have to remember anything at all. I see my house not far off. And it is my only beacon of light.
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