The cool wind kissed my chapped face, a far-off voice shouted my name in the distance. But I ignored it. I was not here, on this Earth. I was far, far away, on some imaginary land where all my focus was turned too. At length, my name was called again. Knowing it was the wrong thing to do, that I ought to get up and perform my humanly duties, I stayed put. With my back against the freezing ground, my mind was somewhere above, only coming back down to Earth at the third, and loudest, shout. 

My eyes closed for a brief moment, while I relished the solitude, until, yet again, my name was called out, indicticing I was needed elsewhere. I closed my paper-back book, wondering when the next moment I could leave this Earth would come…

Slowly I got up, my heavy jacket covered with snow on my back-side, I treaded on towards the voice of a distant family member, my boots slushing the melting ice, creating deep imprints in the snow.

As I was walking towards the voice I wondered if this trip up North was worth it. I felt the cold seep through my many layers, touching my skin, and pierce my body. I involuntarily shivered, my body begging me to get out of the numbing weather. 

When I reached the source of the shouting, I smiled to myself, I was right, this was a remote relative. As she beckoned me inside the lodging, complaining about relatives I neither knew nor cared about, asking me for assistance in preparations, my mind was turned elsewhere. I toyed with the object in my hand. It’s spine was barely held together with Scotch Tape, it’s cover was ripped in several places, but I cared and appreciated it nonetheless. 

As I was contemplating an excuse to remove myself from my second cousin (or was it my third cousin?) my mother spotted my companion and me and hurried toward us. 

“... absolutely insane. She’s decided she wants roses instead of lilies for her bouquet.” She turned toward me and asked for assistance in, as she put it, “putting some sense in the bride.” The only thing the bride did not have any sense about was not flowers, but this admissible choice for a wedding venue. As my mother dismissed me from my distantly-related cousin, she led me to the bride’s location. My mind wandered yet again from my current conversion, and instead to my anticipation of my next moment of solitude. Where no one shouted my name, where roses and lilies were equally beautiful, and did not need choosing over…

Of course, that moment came. For what seemed like the millionth time during this increasingly regrettable trip (as if I had a choice), I slipped outside where the bitter wind whipped my face, as if punishing me for not being where I ought to be. I layed down on the hard ground, opened my dilapidated book, and left this reality, where everyone else’s worries, and my own, felt like a distant dream I would not remember when I woke up.