Valentine

It all seemed fine until the temperatures dropped.

The large building stood silently. A person in it, had he taken the time to give a cursory glance into the triangular lawns in the distance, would have observed a human form; something similar to the solitary reaper (from Longfellow's poem). Had he any artistic inclination he would have felt the urge to run out of his cubicle and sit beside that form. Such was the weather.

Like a sulking woman, it seems calm and tranquil from inside, and on confrontation, like her words, it cuts through you like a sharp, cold knife. Everything is crystal clear in a sepia tint painted by the momentary demise of the fiery sun. The weather is beautiful and dangerous, a femme fatale.

High up in the clouds, water molecules, hardened by the coldness around them, striving for symmetry, fell in place into hexagonal flakes. On the ground, amidst the artificial grass, the human form stirred in discomfort. The bone-chilling cold was to the least of its (the human form’s) worries. The whole world weighed down on its shoulders; it normally does, doesn't it when your whole world is everything of that one person?

Merrily, the snowflake danced to the tunes of wind. The clock is ticking and Gravity tugged it hard but it is in no hurry. It fluttered hither and thither. The beautiful symmetry seemed everlasting; the airy dance, the eerie calm, the buoyancy. The yellow flake, in wonderland, felt elation at the breeziness and listened to the pensive voice (of wind) singing praises to the heavens.

The human form looked up at the sky. And the large building. It kept asking again and again, WHY? WHY? WHY? The sky was silent. So was the building. The only voice that answered was the melancholic resonance of the air. That all pervading entity, in answer, brought merry flurries with it; little six-handed youthful figurines.
The human form looked at the falling white snow-flakes. (Optical compensation makes the brain perceive the yellow flake as a white flake) For the human form, in all the youthful exuberance, the world seemed white. The brain compensated for all the flaws. The yellowness in the character painted a pure white by breezy boldness. And the human form embraced the white light, allowed the light to blind it to everything else.

The snow flake fell to the ground. The heaven, from whence it came seemed far and unreal. Stuck to the ground, symmetry broken, it stared about in confusion. Thrown, haphazardly, its companions, those partners-in-solace, looked back in equal dismay. No more breezy dances and pensive praises. They laid about, beside the human form, silent spectators of a similar spirit with expression.

The last of the tint disappeared and the Sun died completely. And then there was darkness.

After countless questions, with the numbness gone, the human form suddenly felt its brain respond to stimuli. It is biting-cold. All around, neither there was yellow nor white light. It was dark. And in a place darker, somewhere in the depths of its heart, where there was neither yellow nor white, was a seething pain, a cold, dark pain burning with blinding intensity. It's like an itch in a phantom limb. You just stare about in confusion (remember our crestfallen white hexagonal friends) not knowing how (or where) to scratch on a limb that doesn't exist. With all the sense organs in confusion, the eyes took the initiative. Trying to warm up the dying spirit, they continuously spilled-out warm tears.

The snowflakes cried in unison.

If only there was a natural law of relativity that could bend the physical weather around the human mental conditions! As merciless as a scorned woman, the cold bit into the human form. It lay there, waiting for the numbness to be complete.

Like the cold, reality bites.