The Cold Winter Wind

This is one of my favorite pieces I wrote, the first one that I really spent a lot of time on, although I still feel it's not quite right. I'm constantly coming back to it to edit, change, etc. But that's the thing about writers, or even potential ones: they're their greatest critics and will always go back to something they wrote that they really like to "fix".

"The Cold Winter Wind"

When I wake up I notice it’s another cold day. The wind is blowing its cold intentions across the city, turning the snow into little knives that cut down to the bone, and I find warmth on a train looking out the window. Surprisingly, it’s quiet; the only sounds that can be heard are the trundles of the trains running up and down their tracks and people walk briskly towards their destinations bundled up in their armour of winter jackets, toques, and gloves, while they complain that this city is too cold during the winter, and wish for summer to come. When summer comes they complain that this city is too hot, and wish for winter; they never get what they want. Rushing and rushing from one place to another, they hunger for that something else that their homes can provide.

Or maybe there’s something more that they want. Rather than the warmth of a house, they prefer the warmth of friends or lovers—the warmth of people close to them. Maybe they leave this cold city for a world inside a book, written for the express purpose of delicious disassociation. Or maybe they leave this place all together for somewhere warm, somewhere where people and relationships are fleeting.

It’s always interesting to watch these people, with their jackets, toques, and gloves; they always give the air of delirious desperation. They can teach a person a valuable lesson. But how many lessons are there to be learned in the cold wind blowing its cold intentions across the city? Intentions? What intentions? Dress up, be warm, so that you can slow your situation down and enjoy this life that is so cold? Dress up, be comfortable, so that you can quickly run through the snow to the warmth that your friends and lovers can provide? What a paradox; slow down, speed up, complain, want, and wish. Winter is a great season to watch people—they can teach you so much.

So the city in the weather is really cold. What I mean to say is, weather is a cold city. What I mean to say is winter is a season when nothing makes sense. Colours blend, blemish, and blush together till everything is grey and you can’t tell white from black anymore; Mike’s, Jon’s and Ben’s become “Hey”, Jessica’s Stephanie’s and Michelle’s become “you”, up becomes right, right becomes west, south becomes north, and left becomes something else entirely. Is there any point to knowing this many people or doing so many things? Or maybe knowing so many people and doing so many things is the point itself? Who’s to say, there has to be a point, hasn’t there? Otherwise, it’s all pointless anyway.

And now it’s night. The house is silent, but not, and the cold is left outside while the bubbles from the fish tank gurgle and giggle their merry tempo through the floors of the house, and the cats can be heard from time to time roaming around the open rooms. A board creaks, stirring a person oh-so-slightly from their sleep, just for them to mumble something incoherent, while they venture back deeper into the halls of dreams.

I myself stay up, listening to all these noises, wondering what the house could be trying to tell me. There are no days from long ago for this place; it was built very recently, my sister and her husband are in fact the first owners; there are no ghosts to come by the bed-frames to chill their master’s cheeks, no ghouls to glide into their dreams.

So what, then, is the house trying to tell me? “Stop what you are doing young man, and clean that room of mine that you’re so obliged to live in! Stop young man, and clear that room that is your realm!” Or, to say that the room is clean, what would the house say then? “Come young man, escape to this room of mine, your own place, and forget the foils and follies that follow you. I will embrace you, and let you sleep, as you are.”

The nightly noises that nobody ever hears is the berceuse that the house sings to me, pulling me into the sense of security that I long for at the end of the day. The warmth of the bed, so comforting and familiar, the shape of the pillow, which is only so after months of pounding and punching, combine to provide the rhythm of the house’s song. The cats jumping and shuffling provide the accompaniment. The bubbles from the fish tank gurgling and giggling provide the bass and set the pace for the lullaby to follow.

Finally, the house itself provides the melody. In the creaks groans yawns taps clicks and moans that float around the house come the feelings that make up the words of the song:

“Come young one, be calm.
You will not feel the cold here.
This is a warm room.

Come, growing one, sleep.
Worries will not follow you.
Here, dreams are pleasant.”

With the house singing to me its tune, I sleep, and sleep is a curious thing. So many feelings rush through my body every time I close my eyes and try to get comfortable; my body tingles, comfortably, slowly becoming heavy until that tingling turns into a tickle and always my thoughts turn and crawl into the more obscure cracks of my memory, quietly, almost without a sound at all while they turn into dreams.

I never remember those dreams. They are fleeting, like feet through the shallow waters of a beach; they touch my imagination, stir up emotion, and then leave. When the sun comes up and I wake, I’m left just as shifted, as conflicted as the sand on that beach, outside shivering in the cold winter wind.