Winter Is Here
Small and delicate as a deer
When Sylvie looked out the kitchen window that morning the ground outside was very white. Almost two feet of snow had fallen overnight.
Take a map to understand the dynamic system that is her hair. Parted here cascading there. If, for example, you were to replace the wires in your computer with these straw-colored strands. Then no doubt your computer would be smooth and fast, as beautiful as butter, as elegant as the little cat curled up in a ball sleeping on your pillow.
So then, Sylvie gulped down a small glass of water and sat down on the sofa. It was Sunday and it was time to read her favorite book: The Refutation of Glass, by Adolfo Casares.
She was just settling in when she saw a tiny white deer standing on the coffee table. Kind of a strange experience, to be sure. She reached out to touch it, but she felt nothing — her hand went right through it. The deer, so nice. White as the sunshine, about the size of a big cat. Looking around like a lost lamb, but never at Sylvie.
There was a knock on the door. She got up and, with a last look at the deer, left the living room to answer it.
Stop again for a moment and consider how cold the doorknob is when Sylvie reaches out to grasp it. How the blue of her veins shines through the pale skin of her hand. The small fading triangle tattooed on the back of her hand, just below the index finger’s first knuckle. All these things (and no doubt countless more) existed in that moment that do not exist any more.
At the door there was nothing. A gust of wind blew some snow in the house, along with a dead leaf. In the cold, we don’t wait long to see who it is, plus there is an odd deer to look into. Sylvie closed the door quickly and went back to the living room to examine it further.
But there was no space for her in that room, there was no space for anything except for the huge white head of an enormous deer, its black eyes dark like the caves of prehistoric winters. Sylvie could feel its presence like a bass note vibrating, heavy and vast, massive and dark.
It’s eyes found her. Rolled to regard her.
“Winter is here, Sylvie.”
She heard the voice in her head, pushing out everything else, somehow louder and stronger but at the same time sounding like her, like her timbre and tone, as if she were speaking to herself but with more conviction and power than she had ever had before.
It held her with its eyes. And then it opened its mouth and started to scream. Louder and louder as its white fur turned blacker and blacker, as if it were burning with a black flame. Sylvie shut her eyes and covered her ears and found that she was screaming, too.
And when she opened them again she was alone. The Refutation of Glass was there on the sofa where she had left it.
The kettle started to sing; she was making some tea. Winter was here, after all.
