winter does

that year winter came suddenly and without a warning. 

the cold descended abruptly and froze the nature to a standstill, stopped everything like a pause button on a film might; and the snow covered the town faster than a spilled glass of milk colours the surface of a table into a pure, uninterrupted white. the birds that happened to be flying when the winter came froze into blocks of ice and dropped to the ground like stones, and when the sea froze together with the arrival of the winter the fish too close to a surface became a part of the icy lid.


suddenly it was quiet in the mornings, a different kind of quiet than before; not the kind you enjoy before a busy day but the quietness of a grave, of oblivion and forgotten names. it was the kind of silence you hear in the end of the world when there are no voices left any more; it was  like the white blanket covering everything would have muffled the sounds of traffic and blocked the words of people in their throats. not that you saw that many people now that the winter had came; the cold closed all the doors and drew thick curtains in front of windows, and any light that might have been on was carefully hidden from the winter behind them. the air smelled of cold, the unmistakable scent of winter, sharp and clear as frozen water; the only smell the thin, cold air would carry for the following months to come.

so winter descended upon the town but also upon S and K. in the end it was hard to say why things went awry when the winter came; was it so that when everything froze they were too far apart and couldn't make their way to each other any more, once the places were cast; or was it because their relationship was too young, formed of the long, light nights of the summer past and moulded in the warmth of the gone autumn afternoons, and once the winter set in it withered and died like a shoot of a plant that has been left unprotected. whatever it was that brought their demise, it grew with every dark winter day, gained strength from feasting on the remains of their dying relationship that was locked inside behind the closed doors and unable to escape. it grew until it couldn't be controlled any more, or contained; and it broke free, exploded out of their skins as shouts, accusations, angry words and bitter remarks that tore into shreds whatever there might have been left of them.

so in the end it was winter that killed them; because that is what winter does.

but winter didn't care about it, didn't pay attention to the destruction and death it had brought about; because that is not what winter is for. winter can't help itself, can it; it kills and smothers and strips bare because it is the only thing it knows, and this cannot be held against it.

it never was anything personal.