It was minus ten degrees, with a minus thirty wind chill and snow falling in at forty-five degrees. Nobody would be crazy enough to take a walk in such conditions.

Nobody except Taylor. She loved it. She didn't mind the bitter cold wind, or the ice collecting on her eyebrows, or the treacherously slick road she had to navigate. Those were minor annoyances. Taylor loved the weather precisely because no one else was crazy enough to go outside. She had the village all to herself. The empty streets and sidewalks fascinated her unlike anything she'd seen. The shops were nearly all closed. The shopkeepers couldn't get their vehicles out of their driveways. Everything was quiet except for the rushing wind.

Taylor wandered the streets, breathing in the crisp chilled air through her scarf. Finding herself no less alone and no less unobserved after a whole hour, she took to walking in the streets, dancing through intersections as graceful as a girl wearing two jackets and bulky snowpants can. Taylor felt a dreamy chill, not from the cold, work its way through her body. She might never see a real abandoned city but this created the same effect. It was as if winter had, along with the lakes and streams, frozen time around the old brick buildings and glowing streetlamps.

She neared the center of town. In the corner of her eye Taylor saw a light inside a building. Were the lights always on there? Had someone actually managed to open a shop, against all odds? She crossed the street to investigate. It was a coffee shop, and as Taylor approached, she saw someone casually wave at her through the window. She waved back and went to the door.

He was a young man, fairly attractive, about Taylor's height and probably a year or two older. He smiled as she shook the snow from her boots.

“You look like you've been out there awhile,” he said, “how about a coffee?”

“Do you have hot chocolate?”

“On the house, since you're so brave. You're the first soul I've seen in town since yesterday.”

A few minutes later Taylor had her hot chocolate, and was seated in a booth by the large shop window facing the street. The young man seemed bored, so she invited him over and asked him why the cafe was open when nothing else was. He pointed to a staircase in the back of the room.

“I actually live here. When my father bought this building it had an office upstairs, and he converted it into living quarters.”

“You grew up in a coffee shop.”

“Been here for twenty-three years. I don't always have to be here, of course, I have employees, but it's my home.”

They exchanged names. His was Joseph. He asked her why she had been out walking in the cold.

“Maybe I'm just that kind of person,” Taylor said.

“That kind?”

“Different... unconventional.”

Joseph stroked his chin. “A dreamer.”

Taylor smiled. Her attention drifted towards the window. Snow was still falling, lightly. The sky was gray. This was the most enjoyable time of the year to her. She had never felt the same about sunshine, warm weather, or clear blue skies. Those were comfortable conditions for a day at the beach, or running, or playing in the grass. But they did not compare to the frigid silence, and the dark skies casting snowflakes into the breeze, and the lakes iced over several feet thick, and the cold radiating from the windowpane on which she leaned her head. She loved the spirit of winter – melancholy, and solitude, but also strength, and beauty. It simultaneously calmed and emboldened her.

Taylor sipped her hot chocolate, relishing the warmth of the mug in her hands, and smiled. “Let me ask you, have you ever danced in the streets?”

He tilted his head, a certain entertained look in his eyes. “Perhaps I've thought about it once or twice.”

Taylor offered her hand. “Would you like to?”