crunch and slip
The sound of the snow pleased her. It crunched and it squeaked at the end of every step. Her boots slipped a little as they compacted the fresh powder. For each of those precarious split-seconds her heart jumped. Just a little. There wasn’t any real danger. Just that momentary slip – an inch or so, maybe less.
She breathed heavy and watched the steam of it drift away among the falling flakes. It was thick and turned the world around her into a winter mosaic. Everything familiar was different, temporarily veiled.
She stopped to kick a drift, giggling as the powder exploded from the tip of her wellie boot.
Her mittened hand waved at old man walking his spaniel; the animal amazed, confounded and delirious at the strange new medium that surrounded it. More laughter as the dog chased the falling snow.
She scooped with both hands and shaped a rough sphere. The ‘phap’ as it hit the stone wall echoed: a satisfying punctuation to her throw.
Before long she heard branches dripping, and saw above a sliver of blue sky.
She walked a different way home, listening to the crunch of her boots and the jump of her heart with every slip.
This entry was posted on March 16, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under ideas, prose, snippets, stories. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
