Footprints in Snow

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Caught, trapped, wrapped and wool­len bound in a com­plete whiteout, a winter won­der­land of sorts, with my fin­gers little more than a faded mono­chrome mere mil­li­metres from my face. I can almost believe that noth­ing else exists — that noth­ing else ever exis­ted — bey­ond my pro­tect­ive wall of rust­ing wire.

The ever-buzzing hive, the thriv­ing labyrinth of boxes upon boxes, has been reduced to a hushed silence. The city’s bells are muffled, drunken and slur­ring. Even the sirens are dis­tant, rush­ing to the scene of a crime com­mit­ted some­where way bey­ond these mists, while a peal of laughter and a sud­den, inebri­ated holler can seem­ingly carry for miles through this foggy, slow-moving picture.

Yet this is not what I want. Not in the here and now, not in today’s rota­tion of our spin­ning world. Yes, minutes and hours may have paused, but I need to stop all the infernal clocks and watches: remove each and every skeletal hand from their dials, pluck them from their cir­cu­lar misery, and gently entomb them in the soft­est bed of tis­sue for the fore­see­able future. Only then would I breathe anew, afresh, as if for the very first time.

My desire would be for the skies to open up and throw down a snowstorm like never before, car­pet­ing the rooftops, the sills and the net­work of irreg­u­lar lines below, so that I could retreat behind the iron and peel­ing paint of my win­dow frames, press my face to the glass and smother my skin in my own breath, frost­ing white upon white upon white. No reflec­tion, and no time for reflec­tion because the tick­ing of time has ceased to be.

Tell me, first, what would you see?

Foot­prints in snow, stretch­ing in every dir­ec­tion away from my anonym­ously numbered door in a rush of still life. With so many dif­fer­ent hori­zons on offer, I would neither know nor care about which pair of tracks to fol­low, and would instead fol­low none. With leave to remain here on high in my van­ish­ing air, I would watch for the dis­tant out­lines that dared to walk against the furi­ous dash of human­ity, mov­ing ever closer and trans­form­ing them­selves from sil­hou­ette to skin, from memory to flesh and bone.

Tell me, second, what would you hear?

Foot­prints in snow, rhyth­mic­ally crunch­ing in their crys­tal clar­ity, uncer­tain rather than con­fid­ently strid­ing. I would hear every gasp of air and every frozen intake of breath. Every choked laugh would rico­chet against the brick walls, trans­form­ing in a single beat into the sound of child-like shrieks burst­ing forth. Most of all, I would pay hushed heed to every whis­per, to see if I could make sense of the indis­tinct mys­ter­ies being impar­ted to me in the dusk, in the dark, and in the stark white morning.

Tell me, third, what would you touch?

Foot­prints in snow, crawl­ing along and pla­cing my hands, one after the other, in the curved impres­sions before they faded in yet another fros­ted flurry. I would embed my palm in every heel, caress my out­stretched fin­gers against the upper curve of every sole, and touch where you had walked. Maybe, in the shape you had left in your wake, I would dis­cover where you trav­elled before find­ing your way through to the threshold of my hideaway.

Tell me, last — and with the few wintry words you have left before your voice dis­ap­pears into the thin­nest air — what would you be?

I would be enmeshed. I would be found forever up here, as much as lost forever down there. I would be foot­prints fad­ing back into the pav­ing stones. Snowblind now, becom­ing snow­melt later.

• Disco Inferno