A Thousand Snowflakes

One, two, three.. Sloan laid in the snow bank, staring up at the grey sky as snowflakes fluttered down, landing on her lashes as she tried to count them. She watched her breath as it escaped her, feeling the snowflakes on her face as she blinked them away. Time was such a funny thing, wasn’t it? Sloan stared up, watching the shimmering shapes of the flakes— all so utterly and completely unique. Snowflakes were a lot like people in that way, she thought. Each one was made so very differently, and not one of them was identical to the other. Sloan heard footsteps crunching in the snow beside her, and she didn’t bother looking over at them. “What are you doing down there?” A cold voice asked her. She let her eyes float over to the person then. A man she’d never seen before was standing over her, and Sloan noticed immediately that he was handsome. He had angry eyes, though. Not anger directed toward her— but anger towards life. It was a shame, too— they were beautiful brown eyes that she was sure would light up in the sun. He was really tall, probably over six feet— with well defined muscles that she was sure he worked tirelessly for. In his thick jacket, boots, and jeans— his brown hair cropped short and covered in fallen snow— he was handsome. Heartbreakingly so. Sloan turned her face back towards the sky. “You made me lose count,” she told him blandly. He blinked at her. “Lose count of what?” Sloan huffed. “The snowflakes, silly.” He looked taken aback. “You’re counting snowflakes?” “Mhm,” she confirmed, her eyes focusing. “It’s good for the soul. You should try it sometime.” “August!” A female voice called. “Are you coming?” “Give me a minute,” he called back. The man named August examined Sloan again, as if he were trying to figure out a complex puzzle. “It sounds about as boring as watching paint dry.” Sloan laughed, pointing her finger up to the sky. “It’s not, August,” she said dreamily, “do you want to know something cool about snowflakes?” Intrigued, he stayed silent, and Sloan smiled a half smile. “No two snowflakes are exactly the same,” she explained. “There’s so many conditions that have to be just right for them to form, and the odds are always stacked against them. Yet here they are, falling in mass numbers, and not a single one of them is like the other. They’re all unique.” “Sounds like you have your head in the clouds,” August almost smiled at her beneath the cold mask. She looked up at him, smiling. “I know, and doesn’t it sound like such a wonderful place to be?”