Memories of a Lost Winter
Snow fell silently from the stricken sky above. The clouds were as white as the ground beneath.
As I stood on my terrace overlooking my city view, my heart beat slower, trying hard to understand, the icy whiteness layering this amazing place, trying to figure out the seconds between the blinking of the aircraft lights overhead. The sky cried for me, letting its crispy, white angels fall to the ground for me. The snow touched my skin and let me feel its presence, it knew I wasn’t a stranger to this city, it knew it had stood over me once before. I doubt the sky ever forgets the faces of those it watches over.
“Yuki, are you out there? Are you looking for me? Will you come for me?”
All of New York was before me, well, what I could see of it at least. The rest of it was out there somewhere, beyond the haze of snowfall, beyond the tall buildings giving me a small window of sky. It all stood still in reverence for the melancholy beat of my heart.
For a moment, the city that never sleeps made not a sound. The feathery flakes from heaven consumed every shadow, leaving me alone, me chained to the memories that haunted me. All sight was lost, and my slice of sky began to drift into fog as visions of my past unraveled in my mind.
I could see him so clearly, that young boy standing in an empty hallway. He was me, in a simpler form, not as weighed down with reality as I am right now, he was still carefree. He stood in front of a closed door, with his balled-up fist on the frame. His head was bowed, and the carpeted floor below him began to dot with teardrops. It suddenly occurred to me that this was the day Yuki tried to shut me out of his home, his life and his heart.
“Yuki.” Was the familiar name that chimed from his lips. “Why?”
With a slow noise, the door opened before him, and in the doorway stood a tall, fair-haired man, with a familiar, beautiful face, so distorted by a scowl that it was almost hateful, looking right at the young boy with dead, hollow eyes.
“Why Yuki, what did I do? Whatever it is…”
“If you’re going to sit, crying outside my doorway, I will have you thrown out of the building.”
“But, I don’t understand what…”
“This love story between us is over. Now leave, you’re becoming an eye sore.”
He wouldn’t let me touch him, I remember I tried to get a hold of him, to see if that would change anything. But he stepped back and tried to close the door.
“Wait!” I shouted. I planted my foot in the way of the door, preventing it from closing. He pushed harder, I could hear him panting, this was killing him, but why was he doing it?
When he realized the futility, he fell away, letting me ease my way back into the apartment. He stepped back and turned to make his way to the living room., reaching into his shirt pocket and retrieving a pack of cigarettes and expertly placing one between his lips.
The lighter he just picked up off of the living room table clicked and he raised the flame to the awaiting tip, breathed in and threw the lighter back onto the tabletop.
His poise had changed, he skulked over to the armchair and slumped into it heavily. He lifted one leg over the other, crossed them and took the cigarette from his lips with his index and middle finger.
He let out a deep sigh, letting the smoke shimmer of into the din of the room, and looked up at me.
They locked on mine, heavy, serious, fierce.
“Why?” he asked.
This was not the first time he had tried to leave me behind, or make me fall out of love with him, but some things are easier said than done, and my love for him wasn’t something I could explain, it was beyond words, it was…love.
“Why do you love me? Why, me?”
A fire engine just roared by, somewhere down there on the city street, I could hear it, and see a trace of red and blue lights marking out where the buildings were through the blurry white air. And it just struck me, that I am about as far from him now, as I possibly could be, maybe he is happy now, without me.
This is a beautiful city, it is glorious and covered in snow, wonderfully drowning in a blanket of thick air, for once in its life, all mine. Mine to keep, mine to have, and mine to love or hate. But sadly, I also belong to this city, it has me caught up in its web of memories, memories of Yuki, and his life. Memories I know so little about, and memories I will try my hardest to explain to you. Memories that took so many different forms…
