by
HUDA Ansari
You know the feeling that you get when you meet someone absolutely perfect? He is the perfect package: soft hair, sweet eyes, nice arms, strikingly tall, speaks like a gentleman, cleans his room, showers daily kind-of-a-guy. You think this is the one. Until of course a week later you discover he is a homicidal sociopath and you are left with a bit of a heartache and potentially a lifetime of fear. Well something like that happened to me recently.
I was off to work one morning when I saw something descending from grey skies above. It wasn’t rain: it didn’t feel wet. It wasn’t hail: I know what tiny ice stones on my head feel like. This was pleasant, almost magical. It was snow.
Its grace mesmerised me. I stood, probably looking like an idiot, at the serenity of the tiny flakes gently settling on my coat. It was bliss. It made me smile and I chirpily headed off to work, silently pondering why people around me looked so grumpy this beautiful morning.
Unfortunately, this honeymoon period was short-lived, as is the case is in most destructive relationships.
I was musing over the blatant lack of correct punctuation in my course notes this afternoon when I glanced out of the window and realised, it’s happening again. My heart pounded. I knew I had to get out. So I did.
Braving the cold, I marched on to run my errands and enjoy another encounter with my latest infatuation. Oh how easily some of the stray flaked ventured into my mouth as I gasped through the frigid cold streets, oh how ticklish those tiny flakes felt on my cheeks, and oh how they HURT when they get inside your eyes. Yes, snowflakes get inside your eyes and it is not a pleasant feeling. So, when you see a classic snowfall scene in a Hollywood chick flick where the female protagonist looks up towards the heavens, dear reader, please remind yourself that stunts you see on the movies should not be attempted by you.
They say the road to true love is bumpy. Well, in my case, it was sludgy. Snow, even in thin layers, can make footpaths a ridiculous slipping hazard even with your sturdy designer boots. It is actually probably safer to walk on a concrete lined asphalt road and having a few cars swerve around you. Perhaps ugly soccer boots are the way to go after all.
I was going to call it the end of my romance. But I guess it would have lacked closure so my dear meddling friend Wind decided to step in. Snow may have grace, but combined with wind, it is pure fury. It is like an onslaught of tiny needles out to attack you. They are no ordinary army – they are a truly seasoned one, inciting sensations of pain even on your very numb skin.
Squishing the flakes of hopes and dreams with my boots like a million tiny snails, I walked home, dejected. Our affair ended even before it had a chance to blossom. There’d be no bittersweet memories, save the tiny flakes deposited all over my head and overall. As I walked into my cosy apartment musing over the mementoes of the lost passion, reality struck me: snow melts, leaving a pile of damp dirty laundry. Like all failed relationships.
The writer now understands why people find it shocking when a pretty woman has a cold heart. The writer should also really get back to studying.
