December, Something

The snow engulfed the street ahead. Lynn and I walked in silence, both too tired. Things weren't going our way and things wouldn't be going our way for a while yet. Not until this blizzard outside my window is a memory. Not until the sparkle and shine fade down New York City street drains. Until the streets reduce to slush.But right then, our feet were a foot deep in snow. The white covered everything we didn't want to see. All the ugly parts. The flowing white kept everything quiet, kept our feet numb, and the miles forever stretching, even if the West Side Highway kept from letting us from cross rivers. The wind mixed with our hair and the snow and icicles hung from our faces. We trudged on, laughing at the fact that our only job was to dirty the snow before us with our feet.
“Let’s make snow angels,” Lynn said.
“Right there?” I pointed at untouched snow. It must have covered a sidewalk and part of the street.
“Okay. You have to let me know if cars come too close.”
“You’re fine. Plenty of space,” I said.

She pulled the faux fur hood over her head, snow sticking to her eyelashes. Difficulties with blinking. She slumped into the snow, her head just below tire marks left by cabs and trucks. It was silent. I took out my camera, the quiet click documenting her print, her wings. A truck rushed through a stop sign and plowed through the foot or so of snow. A few inches were left between her head and the tires.

“You should probably get up," I said.

She stood up and looked at the tracks.
“It definitely would have changed the course of the evening if I got run over by a truck,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s walk around and just lay on things.”
“Okay.”

We found a good spot under some Christmas trees on a brownstone stoop. I lay in the snow thinking about my size and shape as Lynn snapped photos. I thought about St. John’s church and how I liked it, but didn’t know where exactly it was in Harlem, or where exactly God is. I thought about myself as the church: large and all masonry. My corners reaching across quiet avenues: an empty cathedral, hoping for piety. No religion of her own to fill all her guts. Only some lonesome noise echoing around in my cavern. If I could be that church, maybe some sort of ancestral, guiding songs could with some strange metaphysical being and could comfort me buried under my dusting of snow.

I sat up and looked at my print in the snow. It looked as if someone had been lying next to me, curled up into my right arm. Something made noises in my chest.

Lynn must have noticed me looking at it. "I think I stepped there before I took your picture," she said.

I stuck my mitten into the spot in agreement, though I saw no footprints.