No one is awake,and the silence is so absolutethat you can hear the universerearrange itselfoutside my window.

It is blue-grayand a moth-eaten blanket of snowbarely covers everything.The wind whipswhistleswhinesROARS.

It is the bleak midwinter, and I the only thing alive.

I lift the blindand the trees rise up like the petrified bodiesof so many crones from times past.They dance a ballet with the windsong—paying homage to the ashy blue sky.

The snow falls and is still fallingturning the world to somethingno one will ever know.

How frightened were our ancestorswhen this storm broke above them?Did they think the sun had forsaken them?

Had it?

The wind stills.The concert is over, at least for now.I feel the sun begin, quietly, to rise.

A door closes downstairs,and the day begins.