Winter’s Bite

The frost crystallized on the windowsill, trapping the warm air inside the cozy apartment. Cookies baked in the oven, encompassing the room in the sweet smell of gingerbread. It was an apartment, and yet there was something almost… homey to it.

She lay on the sofa, wrapped in a thick blanket, book in hand. On the table just beside her, a cup of steaming cocoa. It was the picture-perfect winter. Christmas was just around the corner, the snow practically knocking on the door, waiting to be let in… Just past that door, lie chaos otherwise unbeknownst to the woman lying on the sofa. A man’s car slipping on ice and spinning into a tree. A little girl who fell on the ice, bruising her knees. A woman home alone for the holidays, no family to spend time with.

But who would’ve guessed these things were a possibility, when watching this breathtaking woman sip her cocoa and read of fantasies? Of course, the moment she were to see me, lurking in the shadows, would be the moment it all fell apart. This perfect winter day, in this comforting apartment, was about to take a drastic turn.

But as long as she didn’t know what lurked just around the corner, snooping through her room, trying to learn every microscopic detail of this woman’s life, it would all be okay.

Of course, everything has to come to an end eventually. Even the beautiful glistening snow will too, melt away. Just as summer had ended, and the joyous birds had fled, and the lakes had all frozen over- this too, would end. All she had to do was look up, and fall out of her fantasy. All she had to do was notice me standing just feet away from her.