End of November 2012

As she looked out her window, she stood transfixed. Her eyes surveyed the crisp new winter wonderland, smothered with leaves all about the grass and concrete like a thick green & brown rug. The trees stood bare, little more than fattened streaks against the horizon. The sun was just beginning to bestow on the sky its ration of light, and in gratitude the sky brightened into a clear ice blue. Tiny wisps of cloud drifted in no particular direction, almost blending into the atmosphere for their sheer faintness.

Hints of white veins dared to slink across the edges of her window, but this was inconsequential. They were outside, she was inside, free to marvel at the oncoming winter without feeling its bite. She was unflustered at the prospect of a sharp wintry wind on her skin; she’d always found it enlivening. She was unlike most people in that respect.

And… she suddenly remembered that most people included a certain someone behind her. But she hadn’t had direct sunlight caress her sepia skin nor any wind blow through her coiled onyx locks for too many months. She smirked in anticipation, realising the tiny but crucial advantage she now possessed. In her mind autumn & winter had always signified the death of the old and withered, the paving of space to make way for the new.

Now was the time to pave some space.

She unlocked the windows and flung them open, almost pulling them off their hinges with new excitement, and sure enough the unfiltered light and winds of November cascaded into the room. She threw her head back and held her arms wide open, welcoming the last season of the year. She was enveloped and enthralled by the gust, hugging her from all directions. It felt so right, so natural, so…

“Oi! Why the bloody hell’s it so cold in ‘ere?” he shrieked in his street twang. He shot up into a sitting position and glared ahead to see her at the fully open window. “Hey! Close that goddamn window! What’s wrong witcha? You wanna freeze me last hair follicles off?”

She turned to face him, elated at his shivering discomfort. She gazed at his simultaneously gorgeous and hideous self; his rippling muscles and manly scars, his navy blue tiger-stripe tattoos across his smooth peach skin, his head as smooth as a snooker ball (except for the stray tufts of hair above his ears he so fervently sported), large round sea green eyes and long camel lashes.  The thought of his few remaining strands turning to ice and snapping off in the breeze brought a smile to her face.

“Watchu smiling at you dumb ho? I fought I already teached ya to control that attitude! Do I have to beat it back out of ya?”

Rather than tremble and swallow her tears with fear as she would have done normally, she let her smile break out into full laughter. Her chocolate eyes locked onto him like a hawk’s.

“Oh now you gon’ laugh at man eh?” he said angrily, then said slowly and deliberately, “Close that bloody window if you know what’s good for ya.”

Reassured by her long-time friends of sunlight and wind, she responded slowly and deliberately, “No.” His eyes flung open in angry surprise but she stood her ground. She stepped toward him, guided by the icy bluster on her back with a face just as cold. He tried to stand and reassert his dominance but he was too cold to even take the blanket off.

Now she stood at the end of the bed and demanded unflinchingly, “Get out of my house. Now.”

His anger scorched the coldness out of his bones and he finally stood up, fist raised to punch her back to the floor where she belonged. But her contact with solar rays had reawakened her attitude, and she held his hand in a vice grip and bent it back. He squealed as he felt two of his finger joints cracked.

“Woman! You gone mad?” shouted the brute, voice raised but eyes quivering like waves on the sea.

“Not mad,” scowled the resurrected dame, “brave.”