Her lips were a water color red, glazed over and sweet with the taste of snow. White pedals of snow were planted to her hair; her wiry blond hair. It was held back into a pony tail, and reinforced with a bobby pin. Her shattered green eyes held a tear of sorrow, and her lower lip, buzzed and shook with shock. The snow glittered and fell around her. She stood underneath the heavy night sky, longing for her simple childhood days.
The days when the jolly old man with the snow white beard, a large belly and cherry red cheeks and nose rode into town on his magical sleigh, led by 7 majestic flying deer. The seventh deer, the lead deer, had a sparkling, shining red nose, unlike the charcoal black the other six possessed. When she would sleep on her living room floor, with her red cotton pajamas covering her small body, under the large green Christmas tree, with small ornaments, tokens and strings of light that hung from the branches. She would wait for that jolly old man, anticipating the sound of hooves on her snow covered roof, the collected clatter of jingle bells, and his jolly “Ho Ho Ho” as he exited his sleigh. And in the morning she would find herself in her bed, completely confused and bewildered that she was in her bed and not under the tree. She would rush down the stairs and find her mother, father and the Christmas tree awaiting her arrival. To her -at that moment- it was all about the presents.
Where were the presents? Why did the tree look so bare and naked where the gleaming presents should be? Her childhood dream was mixed and stirred with reality. There were no presents, no tree, and no childhood worth living for. Her small six year old bones grew and shrunk into teenage bones. Her small toes grew large, covered in socks and layered in boots, protecting her teen age toes from the cold winter outside of her shoes. Her chest grew and deformed as her legs grew longer, and denser with muscle. Her dream was no more.
She heard the violent scream of her four letter name come from the kitchen, she didn’t come. She heard the whispers of snow behind her – someone was coming. She shifted her weight to her left, buckling her right, and stepping forward into another step of knee deep snow. The snow both screamed and whispered as her and her follower departed. By the whispers of the snow behind her, her brain calculated a slow, almost lazy walk. With each advancing stride, the snow screamed under her booted feet, and she ran. The snow would catch and cuddle her foot, not letting her advance another stride, she fell.
The ice bit her hands, her bare skin covered hands, her face was pushed into the snow, deep. She felt the white pedals kiss her cheeks, and pull the hair around her face from its organized position. She stood, and took a few more strides before she was kissing the snow again. The ice kicked at her knees and shins. The cold saliva of the snow slid down her collar, and the ice spit onto her jeans seeping into the pours on her knees. A small tear, wanders away from her broken eyes, the icy winter air eats at the tear, leaving a trail of ice down her cheek. The pain bites at her nerves, sending shock waves to her brain.


A hand grabs and steals her wrist from her. And a body stops, followed by the tug on a limb and the collapse of her body into the icy snow. A scream of letters is exchanged between the bodies; one standing, one sitting. A clap and joining of hand and cheek is made, many tears fall, and one body walks away, melting the skin on his bones with amateur anger. A heart shatters, one melts, and the snow falls.
She hears another violent scream from the kitchen, calling, screaming her in, inside the four white walls of the warm house. Again she did not come. She made no effort to answer. She lies back in the snow and let her lungs scream. She screamed and cried, she cried and screamed. The body came back. His skin still steaming, and his heart the form of a half melted chocolate bar, still solid, but squishy. He knelt down beside her, and place his hand on her cheek, whipping away her many ice tears, and he quitted her screaming.
Another set of words was exchanged between the bodies; one kneeling, one lay on the snow floor. The words weren’t harsh anymore. They were barely audible over the loud whispers of the snow. A short connection of lips is made, and a crack of a smile appeared, once more, on the two bodies. The snow glittered, the girl froze, the boy melted, and all in the world was perfectly, beautifully horrible again.