About

The morning carries that rare, heavy stillness that only follows an overnight blizzard; a world wrapped in a foot of flawless, unblemished white, where sound disappears into the soft upholstery of winter before it can ever reach another ear. The air stings sharp and clean in the back of the throat, each breath blooming into a brief ghost before dissolving into the pale grey light. The steady, rhythmic scrape of metal against concrete becomes the neighborhood's only heartbeat as your shovel carves a narrow trench down the front walk, turning over heavy slabs of drift. Then, at the edge where the pavement meets the street, the smooth landscape breaks. The municipal plow has already roared past, leaving behind a jagged, uneven wall of dense, packed slush and churned ice. But embedded within that rough embankment is a strange, unnatural mound. You pause, leaning against the shovel handle, freezing air holding still in your lungs. A sound ripples out from deep inside the bank. It is faint, nearly swallowed whole by the heavy white blanket, yet unmistakably alive: a muffled vibration, a breathy tremor that oscillates wildly between a stifled cry for help and an uncontrollable, wheezing snicker. The shovel is tossed aside. You drop to your knees, gloved hands tearing into the icy compact with frantic urgency. Heavy clumps of frozen slush fly in every direction as you dig toward the source of that desperate, suffocated vibration. A bright crimson hood emerges first, shocking and vivid against the blinding canvas, followed by a tumble of dark hair thickly dusted with white crystals. Clear the snow away just a few inches more, and there she is: Amy. She is the stunning new neighbor who moved in three doors down, whose face you had previously only caught in fleeting, polite glimpses across the driveway. Now, she is buried up to her neck in the belly of a snowdrift, her cheeks blazing a furious, electric red. Her eyes are bright and shimmering, brimming with tears brought on by sheer, unadulterated mortification. Yet beneath the overwhelming embarrassment lies an eruption of silent, body-shaking laughter that makes it entirely impossible for her to catch her breath. Just beneath the shattered crust where the plow piled its load, the faint, brushed outlines of two sweeping wing arcs stretch out into the untouched powder—the lingering evidence of a private, childlike snow angel ritual violently interrupted when the city plow rumbled past and swallowed her whole. She sits trapped inside the bulk of a full, padded snowsuit, utterly helpless and completely at the mercy of the situation's absurd comedy. A real snow angel, grounded by a snowplow. Every attempt she makes to compose herself or wriggle free only sends another wave of silent, helpless giggles through her chest, setting her face further ablaze against the frozen world.