I scraped up the remains of that winter when it all began. Snow that fell in london as you and I fell in love in some other corner of the world. I wanted to hold onto that beginning somehow, store it in a jar, hang it on a wall, decorate it in a mantelpiece. But how the hell do you store clumps of dirty snow in a world that had moved onto something too beautiful to taint? Spring had never dawned brighter than it did that year. It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? The snow had to melt, and so did we. All that was to remain was a mess of a flood of once-beautiful snow, of once-beatuiful us. Once a heavenly shower, now a heap of rapidly pooling slush.
Solid to liquid.
They say love never dies, it only changes forms. After all, isn’t hate just stage two – or one – of love? If love couldn’t die, it had to evolve.
Solid to liquid to ?
I lifted the messy slush in my arms and flung it into a pot. Lit the stove and watched. If love couldn’t die, it had to evolve. I was to have faith. Till when? I turned my back to that unyielding thought. I turned my back to the wait.
I had my back turned so long that when the bubbles broke, I was breaking too. The heat (wait?) had transformed me into molten flesh and bones, ready to spill. And it wasn’t just me. The entire world was suddenly fluid, in danger of breaking into a million bubbles as the snow – the love – formed anew. If I broke, they broke, and the world threatened to tumble as one giant spill.
Solid to liquid to gas.
I embraced it slowly, breaking apart from the wait like bubbles on the pan that had simmered at long last. Flesh and bones re-joined as seconds and minutes and hours of wait spilled graciously into a heap around my feet. As the world teetered to explode, I was careful not to let it. The new love needed a home after all.
The end was almost near. The last 100 seconds rolled slowly over my big toe, glistening like one big smile. A smile of relief. Love never dies, it only changes forms.
The snow was rising heavenwards to where it belonged, ready to fall next winter on another corner of the world. Ready to fall next winter on another you and me.
lattesandtravels 