The little boy stomps around in white landscape, barefoot, leaving behind the hole made of his old pair of boots. He is on his way home, but he doesn't quite know where that is yet. He has heard tales of people lighting up windows to welcome others, but around him, all curtains have been drawn. There was once a meadow. I used to run all the way towards the end, until I rolled downwards. But because of you, all grass has withered, he thinks, and starts kicking the snow. I am sure my fingers have turned blue if they haven´t fallen off like icicles already. I wouldn´t know. I can no longer feel anything. It is all because of you.
He approaches a human silhouette, but is disappointed to find that, once again, it is just a snowball with a carrot for nose. The boy takes its scarf and makes it his own. I know it is wrong to take what is not mine. I don't want to hurt you, but you must understand that I am so cold, and I long for warmth. The garment has turned bitter from being left out for way too long, so it burns his throat and continues to spread its grudge until little of his own is left. This must be punishment, he thinks. Then he silences the poor excuse of a man by snatching its pebbles, once a mouth. You look so bright and clean, but on the inside, you are full of the dirt you eat.
The boy is trudging upwards and that is when he discovers, in the corner of an abandoned house, a flower, growing through frozen ground. It is out of place, unbelonging, like himself. White, but not like snow. A spark is lit in the boy. “And who may you be?” He asks, squatting down, mesmerized by its beauty. He gently touches one of its petals. It reminds him of the neighbor's cat whom he used to greet, before the sea separated them. “Aren't you cold?” He asks the flower, covering it with his jacket, the only thing he owns. “Don't worry, I have another jacket at home,” he assures the flower, but struggles to hide the shaking in his voice.
The boy is too busy talking with his new friend to even notice the fog moving in on them, and the unknown it contains, a shapeless being getting closer and closer until it is hanging over his head and letting out its roar. The boy has no time to find shelter. The wind, holding him down, whipping his back, yet offering no defense as shattered glass is flying towards his neck. He uses his jacket, just big enough for one, as a shield, but not for his own protection. “You are not to feel the suffering I have had to endure,” he sobs, while his tears turn into spikes. A gust of air grabs his scarf, only to suffocate him. His fingers are numbing, so much so that he no longer knows the strength of his own grip. And his slow-beating heart is weakening along with his inside turning to ice. The jacket frees itself and leaps off to someplace it can no longer be used by the likes of him. That is exactly when all becomes lost, but even such moment, is not the boy’s privilege to grieve.
Where the jacket has gone, the boy does not know. He does not even turn around to look for it. His eyes are directed towards something much more important. If there were anyone else out there wandering through an endless winter, they could have caught a glimpse of a speck grasping for an even smaller speck, taken by the wind, never to be seen again. The flower is gone. Torn off. The closest the boy ever came to a home has been left in ruins, right before his bare soul. And only then, does he realize that it also had something to protect; a single blade of grass peeking out. Now left on its own.
So, the boy gets up, without a jacket to warm himself, but this time, he no longer looks for lit up windows.
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