© Copyright 2000, Sea
The girl breathed deeply, her lungs protesting against the frozen air she offered them. She looked around
her wonderingly, yet frightened. She hated walking through the park at night. She usually avoided it, but tonight
was cold, and this was the shortest route home for her. She jammed her hands into her pockets. The cold from
them seeped though her jeans and chilled her hips. She lengthened her stride.
She was now in the center of the park. A fountain stood depleted and dormant. She hardly cast it a
glance. The snow fell faster now. It had acquired a wetness, and it weighed heavily on the girl’s shoulders and
ponytail. she wished she had an umbrella or a hat at least. She silently cursed the meteorologist who had said the
weather would be a balmy 50 degrees tonight, and clear of clouds.
Footsteps made her look up. Two figures were approaching her. She tensed. Two men. She didn’t like
men. Or boys. The ones at school were jerks, and the ones in her apartment building were grouchy and mean.
She clenched her hands. A faint stinging made her realize that sweat was gathering in her palms and mixing
around the blood that seeped from her palm around her fingernails.
The three figures passed on the snow-covered walk. The older of the two men tipped his hat to the girl,
the younger jerked a chin in the popular teenage-boy greeting. The girl gave them a tense smile. They passed.
The girl picked up her pace another notch. There! The gate that marked the exit of the park and her
small apartment beyond appeared around the bend. The girl exhaled a breath in a puff go white in the crisp air.
She focused her entire being on the exit. She did not hear the footsteps behind her. She did, however, feel the
hand on her shoulder and the knife blade at her throat. She froze. A grating voice whispered in her ear for her
purse. She tried to shake her head, meaning she had no purse, but her attacker interpreted her feeble head shake as
defiance. The blade pressed closer. She felt something trickle down her neck, and realized detachedly that it was
her own blood. She managed to choke out a low moan which conveyed that she had no purse. The voice cursed.
A wallet, then, it said. Again she moan. The voice called her a liar, a bitch. The blade cut deeper. More wetness
ran down her neck. She felt nothing. She was floating up. Scared, she looked down. She saw a black-bedecked
figure holding a knife to her throat. Snow covered both figures like a soft down. She almost smiled. Then she
saw the figure remove the knife from the neck of her earthly body and plunge it deep into the chest cavity of her
other self. Redness spilled into the silvery picture of sereneness. The figure cursed, and searched her rapidly
cooling body for a wallet or purse. He found nothing. The girl’s floating self felt an upward tug. She resisted it.
The tug understandingly released her. The floating self streamed down to where the figure was still pawing her
former body. The self pulled the bloody blade from the red and still chest. The figure did not notice when the
blade came flying at his chest until it was too late. It struck her attacker in the same spot where he had plunged it
into the girl’s chest. He jerked. His hands grappled with the blade, but the floating self held it firm. Redness
flooded from the figure’s mouth. He gurgled, then fell on top of the girl’s body. The frozen pool of red was melted
as his blood spread over hers. The stain of red reached out, snow drifted down quietly, and the floating self smiled
gently. It looked down on the scene almost lovingly. It floated upward through the snow, and was met by the
upward tug, and was pulled ever higher. On earth, two bodies were slowly freezing, a pool of frozen red dispelling
the magical snowy night.
© Copyright 2000, Sea