Listening Snow

The songs of the birds and the wafting scents of flowers on the delicate wings of the fresh morning roused her slumbering senses, and she sat up to glance sleepily from her bed about her. Before tossing the blanket away and hurrying to the window to look longingly at the hills that winked at her. Very quickly she sent a short prayer of thanksgiving and dashed about to do her chores and perform her morning rituals; and then out the door. On her bicycle, she paddled down the familiar path to her borrowed-c*m-rented studio where clay, coal and colors called out to her inner self. Today she would make urns like in the ancient days and paintings of days she could only dream of and imagine . As the urns baked, she picked her brush and began to splash colors and arcs strategically. At 4:58pm, she packed up and left the studio down to the pub where she waited tables and imagined all her customers were mystical beings and the pub and time swept back in time she never knew yet was familiar and comfortable with. Towards the wee hours of the next morning, Alice drew the CLOSED sign and paddled her way back home to her fairytale cottage right there in the green hills with flowers kissing every part of it, and the rainbow stretching like a huge smile just over it. And the stars twinkled in warm admiration . Solemn and jet lagged, positively struck with wanderlust and a craving unexplained, Alice turned away from the window and buried herself and her aching a deep beneath the blessings. Where she closed her eyes and drifted fast off into the world she knew she belonged to. On the white mug abandoned forlornly on her bedside table, a tiny white dragon stood watching her as she slumbered. From beneath the studio door, a bright light shone and behind the door, ethereal beings dropped from the painting done much earlier in the day. A painting of a field of flowers with a pointy-tipped manor and a man standing out there in the terrace, one arm folded before him, staring out to space. The moon shone bright and poured a heavy curtain of silvery light upon the earth, washing all it touched with its brilliance. A figure clad in dark colors dashed hurriedly up to the doorway, a few paces into the manor and bowed with his two hands clasped together with a sword in black sheath in hand. Then he rose to his full length. “It’s done.” A man dressed in white sat cross legged playing a zither behind the knots transparent drapes. “Good,” he said not breaking a note. “Set the other plan in motion.” The other man gave a sharp reply, turned and hurried away to carry out his new charge. The man kept at his zither even after he had left, then slowly he rose to his feet, turned around one arm folded before him, strolled up to the terrace where he simply stood so staring at the night. Wondering what may just behind the serene silvery darkness.