★ snow | a short story ★ ᗰy breath formed white clouds of smoke as I exhaled. All the joints in my body ached from the cold and my fingers gripped the thin rope convulsively. All around me rose the spruce tops, cold and snow-covered with branches like long, slender arms reaching towards me, blaming me for the terrible thing I'd done. I dragged the sack behind me like a toboggan, it thumped over unevenness in the ground and plowed up a track in the snow. My raven-black hair fell down over my eyes, and I blew it away irritably, unable to release the burning grip on the rope. I looked up at the white sky and opened my mouth. A snowflake landed on my tongue and quickly melted into a drop of water. The sky was milky, monotonous, as if the layer of blue and black that had previously covered it had been peeled away, now exposing this white blanket that spewed out snow. I shuddered and pulled my shoulders up to my chin. My fingers stung, both from the cold and from pulling on the rough rope. I exhaled and fell to the ground, exhausted. The sack lay limply on the ground next to me. I cupped my hands and blew on them; the heat burned my bluish fingers. It stung weirdly on them. I looked up and saw the large, black sack. It could warm me. With trembling, frozen fingers, I pulled the packet of matches out of my pocket and drew a match along the length of the cloth. But my fingers couldn't hold the match tight enough and I dropped it into the snow. "Aah..." I mumbled and picked up another one, holding it so hard my knuckles turned white. It kicked and a flame flared up at the brown end of the stick. I breathed a sigh of relief and lit the sack. As the flames melted the black plastic, I sat cross-legged and stuck my bluish hands out at it. They stung and burned while the warmth slowly returned. The plastic tore in front of my eyes and an arm rolled onto the snow. Her arm. The liar's arm, the arm from the woman who once had brought me to life. She who had turned down on me. The pungent smell of burnt hair filled my nose and I coughed. The plastic ripped and I saw her head, flames licking the auburn hair, swallowing her face with the aquiline nose and thin lips. As the black smoke rose from the dead body, I found that I didn't regret it a single bit. ★ ★ ★
