There once was a boy who sat at the edge of a frozen lake.
Crystal specks littered the ground like discarded diamonds.
He wondered why ice fields weren't coveted beyond any measure.
Were they not beautiful.
Were they not unique.
Were they not just as fragile and ephemereal as a virgin's gasp?
He wondered why life in it's infinity of wasted moments, was so precious but so disregarded.
this finite life, momentary, blink of existence.
People all around him saying
This is the best we'll have.
All we have.
The miracle is here.
The miracle is all around us, enveloping us in sunshine kisses, twilight wanderings, cold wind that smells like family dinners.
The whisper of snow that echoed two lovers huddled and smiling under the covers.
So much love in their eyes, such a warming presence, oblivious to the outside world, the silent dark world. The only thing that mattered, was the brilliant miracle of those two people. Together, one observer would hope- forever.
Why waste such finite perfection?
Why bother going in to a job you hate, only to beat the everliving piss out of your wife when you get home.
Why throw your kid through a wall for getting grape juice stains on the new carpet.
Why lie.
Why steal.
Why cheat.
Why betray.
Why hate.
Why waste.
Why not hold every moment of happy perfection in the palm of your hand like the tiny, vulnerable, perfect snowflake it is.
And cry tearlessly when it dissapears.
The young man wondered.
About a great many things that day.
Why the child had been born blue and silent.
Why the blood on the sheets had been so dark.
Why the men in sterile green uniforms had to pull his screaming, distraught form from the room.
Why even in death was his wife so terribly beautiful.
Unforgetable.
Perfect.
He wondered if the barrel of the gun would stick to his tongue just like that pole his brother had dared him to lick on a day like this so many innocent years ago.
And for some reason...
that particular snowflake made him laugh
and cry tearlessly
as the hammer fell
and the perfect cold white crystal desert was littered with specks and smears of perfect warm red.
He only hoped that his smile had been preserved half as well as the fading life of ice on a bright winter day.
As perfectly temporary,
as quietly beautiful,
sometimes unnoticed,
often neglected,
as any other
miraculous
moment
of his life.
