Fade Out

An excited call from the door –

Someone wants you to come see something.

It’s something odd…snow?

You shuffle towards the window, hands clasped behind your back,

Still the soldier.

You look out –

Is the world supposed to look like that?

You have a funny feeling it isn’t, but you keep looking anyway.

Nothing better to do.

Inside, even behind the glass, cold wetness fills your eyes and ears –

Makes you blind and deaf.

Fuzzy things from the sky fall down towards you and blur away all the lines

No shapes, just vague impressions of what used to be.

She would like this, you think.

She used to make homemade doughnuts whenever this…stuff…came.

Snow…that’s what it’s called, right?...

You think that it’s kinda like what happens when you wake up in the middle of the night

And walk into the bathroom and flip on the switch –

And suddenly you see only swirls of colors,

Meteor tails and galaxies of times past,

Places far away and iced over.

Everything’s fuzzy.

You crinkle your nose, reaching for the meteor tail –

But it slips away, out of reach, just like always.

White stuff…white stuff everywhere…

Outside and in your mind and in your feet.

Someone leads you away, puts warmer socks on your feet.

You sit down, because that’s all you know to do.

Nothing better to do.

She’s like a picture on the wall…

Within reach, but behind the glass.

She’s a vague impression –

But once she made you homemade doughnuts.

So you keep trying to break the glass, knowing all the time that you never will.

That fuzzy white stuff keeps getting in your way,

Snow…

You smile. Your eyes are empty.

And you try, once more, to reach her…that picture on the wall…