Snow

(Picture taken by Elsa)

“One afternoon I was reading in the living room, and around four o’clock [...] I looked up from my book; something in the room had changed. I glanced around, but everything seemed the same. Then I looked up, and the ceiling was brighter; the light from outside had altered. Something else had changed too. The walls of this building were thick. From the outside I never heard any but the loudest sounds and they were muted. But now I couldn’t hear even these—no horns, air brakes, tire squeals. The silence was absolute. Then, far away, a child shouted for joy.

Carrying my book, I walked to a window and whatever it is that leaps in your chest with excitement sprang up now. There were six inches of new snow, unmarked and sparkling on every horizontal surface outside; ten billion more fat flakes rushing past my window. Nothing moved on the street below me [...] the traffic lights uselessly clicking from green to red; red to green; and across the street, Central Park was a delight. There things moved. Little kids in red, blue, brown, green were running, tottling, and falling down in the snow. They were rolling in it, scooping it up, throwing and eating it. A few had sleds and one struggling cluster was rolling a ball of snow already taller than they were [...] and I stood at the window for what must have been half of an hour watching the big flakes whirl past the glass, watching Central Park turn into an etching as the black branches loaded up with white, watching the humps and depressions that marked paths and streets level off and disappear.”

~Jack Finney (I typed this from an audiobook – any typographical errors are mine)