Silent Snow

It's cold outside, but it hasn't yet become bitterly so, and she makes the decision to keep on walking. The hour is late and the streets are mostly deserted, despite the warm light coming from inside the shops--extended hours for the holiday season. It's been snowing gently, thirty minutes hence, and there's a light dusting of fluffy flakes covering everything; streets, sidewalks, rooftops, and windowsills. It's still coming down, looking almost etherial in the orange glow of the street lamps.

Snow is the most silent of all phenomenon, and she relishes the quiet, hearing only the soft crunch underfoot and the first notes of "Carol of the Bells" somewhere in the distance. Holiday bustle has its own appeal, but this...this is something special.

Colored lights twinkle benignly at her from a shop window, in red, green, and white. She leans close to the glass, to watch the path of a small electric train around a mountain crafted from chicken wire, hard work, and paint. Her breath fogs the window and she brushes it clean with a gloved hand before going on her way.

She straightens her scarf and the snowflakes that have collected there are scattered, on her lapel, and on the ground, reunited with the rest. Though the snow is gentle, it is steady, and she knows that by morning, there will be a significant supply, sparkling and pristine, awaiting demolishment at the hands of children.

But for now, the silent snow and the empty street are a haven, and she stands for a moment, overwhelmed by the scene. It's quite appropriate, then, when she thinks she hears the strains of "Winter Wonderland" floating in from somewhere faraway.