The winter here is cold and bitter. I haven't seen the sun for months. It gets to me occasionally. I often stare out of the window, waiting for it to appear, not knowing how long it will be, or how long I will stare. It is sort of like an awkward moment. That second when two acquaintances have a silence neither can fill. It is different every time, but there is always that silence. The stunned reflection when one says something shocking; the hearer is rightly stunned, searching for response; the speaker, too is stunned. “Did I really just say that?” he might ask himself. “Indeed,” his inner voice replies. “Why did I say that?” The inner voice has no response. It seems restraint came after the horse of words had bolted. Now the consequences of foot-in-mouth occur. Anything said for recovery sake will merely serve to dig a deeper hole. It comes to a point of “You say it best when you say nothing at all.” The only response is, “Well, I have to go to math, so I will see you later.” Not all awkward moments require shocking words. It often happens as a result of not knowing another person well enough to feel comfortable making random conversation, or this lack of knowledge combining with a desire not to spend long enough to complete a legitimate branch of discussion. Ultimately, there is that unwieldy silence that paradoxically paralyses the brain, when, if anything, the brain should be undistracted and motivated to move quicker through the thought processes to end the awkwardness. Rather, the brain senses the awkwardness, and enters a sub-conscious panic. It freezes like Windows. And there is this snowballing silence that continues to contribute to itself through the mind-panic in both conversers' heads. Snow is out there somewhere. But without sun, there is no way to tell. Some refer to a winter wonderland. Well, it may be Mardis Gras out there and I wouldn't know. There could be the most amazingly ghastly alien being, staring in my window at this moment, pondering awkward moments between members of his race, and I would be completely oblivious. I may be staring straight at his eyes, hypnotizing him into an awkward-turtle panic, and I would not know what kind of terrible pain I was inflicting on another creature. I wonder what kind of eyes those would be. Maybe he has a turtle-like head with big googly eyes. Eyes that transform into weird shapes, and change color based on the alien's emotions. If eyes are the window to the soul, and the alien has a soul, his would be a panoramic view of his being. His aspirations and fears would be played out on a big screen, while humans gaze in TV stupor, devouring boxes of fluffy popcorn without so much as a blink. Do they have the same curiosity towards us as we do them? Do they wonder if humans have brains? We may never know. But it definitely isn't an alien, because a nano-sliver of light has broken the horizon, and all that lies beyond the window is the vast white desert of winter.
The opening lines reference a Sarah McLachlan song Full Of Grace.
