Whiteout

I watched the snow build up all day, deeper and deeper, smoothing out the landscape impeccably.  I wondered if people were working, and if so, where?  Where were people going?  Sometimes one could hear them moving at speeds that seemed too fast, and looking to the road saw nothing, but equally often a random glance would produce a car, (or the ghost of a car, because it made no sound) which would vanish into the distance.  Imagining the wind as a physical presence beating on the walls and windows and doors and kicking up now outside in a frenzy is only entertaining for so long, so I decided to read.  Some time passed and it was dark when I lifted my eyes from the words and frame I'd couched in.  The inky black window.  And my room was full of quiet things, unobtrusive things that seemed possibly grateful to have warm alcoves and security.  And the lights were dim, and against the pale walls of green, the light cast back from them seemed to illuminate and shade at the same time, some brine pale light.  Something about the light, and the thickness of the air made me think of the sea, and how I love the sea.  But not what most humans consider the sea, thinking of the surface, of endless generating waves that are symbols of madness and defeat, rather, the seabed.  That other earth, with it's plains that weren't plains, and valleys that weren't valleys, and cliffs that weren't cliffs.