Snow Showers

Lance sits in his apartment looking out the window at the snow showers that have continued from yesterday into today, only today the wind blows more fiercely from the north and keeps the blower to his heater running. Ice falls from the windows and balconies above him.

He tries to write, but the cold and the snow and low clouds obscuring the buildings nearby distract him. Every now and then he reads a short story by William Trevor. He is overcome by a somber almost melancholy mood after each story. He wishes he could write one story nearly a tenth as good. He wishes he could say one thing that moved him.

He recalls a day like this several years ago when, bored, he made a list of all the women he had slept with. He cannot recall where he placed the list. He would like to recover it and underline those with whom he had been in love.

He stayed up late last night to finish reading Doctor Zhivago. He knew it was not the best novel to have started reading over the holidays and on into January. Some of the pages with their cold darkness and misery made him feel uneasy, but none were strong enough to sadden him. Later, he watched a movie called “Only Angels Have Wings”, a melodrama and adventure story starring Cary Grant. He had seen it before and it made him feel good even though there are many scenes where pilots crash their airplanes and are seriously hurt or killed. The movie was made in the Thirties at the beginning of aviation. It was a time when love conquered all in stories no matter what else happened.

He met a new woman in his dreams last night. He attempts to write about her smile, their first kiss, and the feeling of what it was like just before they made love for the first time. He knows she is out there somewhere. He might balk this time when he meets her. He might let her pass by, nearly unnoticed, no matter how much he likes her. He cannot remember whether he caught her name in the dream. She seems lost like the facades of the buildings in the snow showers swirling past his window.

He walks outside into the storm. He heads south down State Street with the wind at his back. The sidewalks are not shoveled and he steps cautiously as he walks. He looks at the faces of the women bundled in their hats and scarves and tries to find a face he recognizes, a face he saw in a dream, a face he knows is out there waiting to be discovered.