We’d planned it for year. It was after we saw the lake. We took a week off and got lost and ended up at the lake. We had time to talk, and time to think. We could stop. We sat by the lake and could sleep. Could wake. Could open our eyes and dream, with no before or after. A day of that, and we knew we were ready. That whiteness. The gold chains came in the mail today, The welcome gift, they’d said. We had nothing to sign. Only these chains, to be welcomed when we left.
The old place has been empty for more than a week. It’s already our old place. Empty but for the bed, and what we’re wearing today. We finished the food last night. We were happy we both decided to keep our boots here. It snowed like hell last night. We’re buttoning our coats now, and can’t do it fast enough. This is the last time we’ll see the place. The last time we’ll walk out the door and take the trash from the kitchen as we go.
Outside, the drifts are up to the windows of parked cars. The black man across the street is stunning. He stands in the middle of the unplowed road. He is a dark stone in a bed of white. Good luck, he calls to us. He does not realize what he says. The TV suggests people stay home from work, and that is what he means. But we won’t be coming back here.
Our feet are already wet. The snow has nowhere to go but down our boots. Every annoyance is nostalgic already. No ploughs have come to any of our roads. Buses are stopped at angles further ahead. Pedestrians wander in the street like children on a playground. The cold is terrible, but no one is running. Today is slow, and that is enough. Cars are buried on either side of us. Humped in silence. Certainly along the sidewalk are many gifts—dog droppings, garbage, pumpkins from October blown and rolled about, toys—that won’t see the sun for weeks. That we won’t see, ever. The white cat in the window we always pass is there too. White on white, she squints and smiles on the sill. It is her world. We’ve taken off our gloves. Numb hands are warm hands. All things we do together.
The main road is barely one lane, from four. It’s taken a half hour to get here. Cars are double-parked beside mounds of white, and from every direction snowblowers are heard from one block, two blocks, three away. We pass the building for the last time where I once saw its wall of ivy wave and sway in a spring wind. Rippling like water, flowing like the lake. Nearly there. Now it’s heavy and crusted. An old man slouched in his huge white coat. We’ll be free of all of this, in only a moment.
The subway steps are still too snowy to be slippery. Too few people have even tried to make it to the trains to melt enough of it away. So few of the usually hundreds of rushed or cautious feet. Down below, in the corner at the foot of the steps, like a man in white standing with his arms open, or a bird in beautiful wingspan, is a drift that came down the steps. It settled in the middle of the night, and spread. It whitens the drab station’s black-greys and pale-yellowsand dulled-silvers. Everyone who passes it smiles to see it there. So unexpected, a jewel in the drab.
Finally on the platform are actual puddles. Puddles left by those with melting coats and bags and boots. Melting hats and beards. Melting ring fingers. Those we recognize from our usual commute probably don’t notice that we are without bags at all. If they searched our coats it might surprise them not to find a wallet. Not a phone. Not a pen. Not one used tissue, not even on me. If they noticed such things, they would find it strange that once on the train we aren’t listening to music. That I’m not reading and underlining. That neither of us slept, as we went. These were all things we used to do. All past things. All things that would have made today’s morning—slow, and with everyone soggy—easier to deal with. Music or sleep or words. All past. A sigh at what we used to do. We didn’t even talk. At least aloud. Instead we touched foreheads. We ran our fingers up the others’ arm, and smile for the future. Or the chink of the chain around our wrists.
We emerge from underground into daylight on the bridge overlooking the river and the city getting nearer. Everyone gasps, even we do. No one has ever seen snow like this. It has started up again. The city, its buildings, have disappeared. The water below a nothing. Outside is only whiteness. The brief glimpses of the bridge seem the shadows of some dark shape far above us. Nothing is solid. Nothing is seen. The wind is furious but we can’t hear it. The the movement of the snow and the movement of the train but the silence of both gives stillness to everyone, and it’s only now we see the lights have gone out in the train. It is still fully lit, with falling white—
And everyone jumps as a window blows open, at the far end of the train, and the couple sitting there holler and jump to the other side. Its windows blow open too. We breathe, and down toward us the windows all blow open and let in the wind, and let out everyone’s alarm, and as we clasp hands we realize it’s happening much sooner than expected, and we know there will be no last day, and in a moment we are swept up and our arms burn and become white with feathers and our necks burn and extend and become white with feathers, and our mouths become hard and dark, our feet dark and webbed, and the chain links us as we assume ourselves out in the air, white as swans are, deep in the storm and white with it, the lake getting closer now.
The old place has been empty for more than a week. It’s already our old place. Empty but for the bed, and what we’re wearing today. We finished the food last night. We were happy we both decided to keep our boots here. It snowed like hell last night. We’re buttoning our coats now, and can’t do it fast enough. This is the last time we’ll see the place. The last time we’ll walk out the door and take the trash from the kitchen as we go.
Outside, the drifts are up to the windows of parked cars. The black man across the street is stunning. He stands in the middle of the unplowed road. He is a dark stone in a bed of white. Good luck, he calls to us. He does not realize what he says. The TV suggests people stay home from work, and that is what he means. But we won’t be coming back here.
Our feet are already wet. The snow has nowhere to go but down our boots. Every annoyance is nostalgic already. No ploughs have come to any of our roads. Buses are stopped at angles further ahead. Pedestrians wander in the street like children on a playground. The cold is terrible, but no one is running. Today is slow, and that is enough. Cars are buried on either side of us. Humped in silence. Certainly along the sidewalk are many gifts—dog droppings, garbage, pumpkins from October blown and rolled about, toys—that won’t see the sun for weeks. That we won’t see, ever. The white cat in the window we always pass is there too. White on white, she squints and smiles on the sill. It is her world. We’ve taken off our gloves. Numb hands are warm hands. All things we do together.
The main road is barely one lane, from four. It’s taken a half hour to get here. Cars are double-parked beside mounds of white, and from every direction snowblowers are heard from one block, two blocks, three away. We pass the building for the last time where I once saw its wall of ivy wave and sway in a spring wind. Rippling like water, flowing like the lake. Nearly there. Now it’s heavy and crusted. An old man slouched in his huge white coat. We’ll be free of all of this, in only a moment.
The subway steps are still too snowy to be slippery. Too few people have even tried to make it to the trains to melt enough of it away. So few of the usually hundreds of rushed or cautious feet. Down below, in the corner at the foot of the steps, like a man in white standing with his arms open, or a bird in beautiful wingspan, is a drift that came down the steps. It settled in the middle of the night, and spread. It whitens the drab station’s black-greys and pale-yellowsand dulled-silvers. Everyone who passes it smiles to see it there. So unexpected, a jewel in the drab.
Finally on the platform are actual puddles. Puddles left by those with melting coats and bags and boots. Melting hats and beards. Melting ring fingers. Those we recognize from our usual commute probably don’t notice that we are without bags at all. If they searched our coats it might surprise them not to find a wallet. Not a phone. Not a pen. Not one used tissue, not even on me. If they noticed such things, they would find it strange that once on the train we aren’t listening to music. That I’m not reading and underlining. That neither of us slept, as we went. These were all things we used to do. All past things. All things that would have made today’s morning—slow, and with everyone soggy—easier to deal with. Music or sleep or words. All past. A sigh at what we used to do. We didn’t even talk. At least aloud. Instead we touched foreheads. We ran our fingers up the others’ arm, and smile for the future. Or the chink of the chain around our wrists.
We emerge from underground into daylight on the bridge overlooking the river and the city getting nearer. Everyone gasps, even we do. No one has ever seen snow like this. It has started up again. The city, its buildings, have disappeared. The water below a nothing. Outside is only whiteness. The brief glimpses of the bridge seem the shadows of some dark shape far above us. Nothing is solid. Nothing is seen. The wind is furious but we can’t hear it. The the movement of the snow and the movement of the train but the silence of both gives stillness to everyone, and it’s only now we see the lights have gone out in the train. It is still fully lit, with falling white—
And everyone jumps as a window blows open, at the far end of the train, and the couple sitting there holler and jump to the other side. Its windows blow open too. We breathe, and down toward us the windows all blow open and let in the wind, and let out everyone’s alarm, and as we clasp hands we realize it’s happening much sooner than expected, and we know there will be no last day, and in a moment we are swept up and our arms burn and become white with feathers and our necks burn and extend and become white with feathers, and our mouths become hard and dark, our feet dark and webbed, and the chain links us as we assume ourselves out in the air, white as swans are, deep in the storm and white with it, the lake getting closer now.
