…the last afternoon here.

The countryside is ochre fading into soft gray… colors that draw me in and along with them into the expanse of the fields. The rhythm of their rising and falling hum along, too… down… up… up… down… up… down. The snowflakes whirl toward the car window and just as quickly stop. A wan sun appears and then the clouds cover the light and the colors appear again. It is deeply winter in this part of the world. Everything is frozen into place…  the stubble in the fields… the brittle grasses in the ditches… snow patterns forged by the wind to the coarse bark of the tree trunks… what moves is the smoke rising from the chimneys… and the snowflakes dotting the windows melting into rivulets that gather before the windshield wipers clear them away.

I am here with this remainder of time… driving down the country road past Amish farms and bare fields… this frozen landscape exactly as it was intended to be in winter. I pull to the side of the road and get out and stand at the edge of the field. The cold creeps in and I allow myself to edge into it. The wind gusts outside the car… the dark clouds pick up the wind’s cadence. Snow is coming… the sense of it in the air. The clouds take off at a run across the sky while the soles of my boots scrape against the solid ground…

…and just like that, without a smile or furrow in my brow, the wind gusts up again, captures me… blows me away upward like smoke as the snowflakes descend. I am here no longer.