When I kissed her, it felt like one those cheerless days when it doesn’t snow quite enough to cover the tips of the grass. For an instant, her eyes wavered, and then she was gone, the sound of the high heels battering my vulnerable mind with every step. Faded green, quivering resentfully, I recognized then, that those eyes, those magnificent, witty eyes, glassy before in the dim light, would snow no more.
Not that I expected that, anyway. I didn’t expect a deep snow. I’m not that naïve, and I’m not that idealistic either. I am sure of myself, though. Or at least I was. Until her. Until she showed up at that Christmas party with that subtle sharpness in her eyes.
I found her later on the porch smoking a cigarette. I’m not one for cigarettes, but good God when a girl gives you that kind of a smile…I could see her flow on the frozen air, the way that her hand shook holding that cigarette met a different kind of trembling in the quivering puffs of smoke she let out.
So we stood there in the night, her and I, smoking cigarettes. I didn’t say anything for a long time, longer than I can remember.
“What do you think of the house?” she asked. “Jenny said it was just finished last year.”
“It’s nice, I guess. I’d rather live, you know, somewhere a little more homely myself, but we all have our own preferences.”
“We certainly do.”
I shifted my feet a bit and waited.
“What do you think about surveys?”
“Surveys?” she said, giving me a puzzled look.
“Yeah, surveys. You know, the kind that you take that tell you what type of personality you have, or the kind of guy you should like, or when your hair will fall out, or what you’ll be in life, or maybe how much time you’ve got left ‘til the clock runs out.”
She looked down and took a deep draw on her cigarette.
“Last time I took a survey, it told me that I was a violet.”
“What’s wrong with being a violet?”
“I’m a dandelion.”
I put out my cigarette and looked at her. “Why?”
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Submission Name: An Unfinished Snowfall
