Is snowing again!

It snowed again today; a light dusting of snow soon covered the dull landscape... and now just outside the window I hear the authentic sound of winter… can you hear it?

...it's a jingling crackity-crickity scattering swish in the distant beyond the garden. It sounds like the breaking of a thousand tiny glasses under a thousand tiny boots. But oh I know no tiny boots can make such sounds like that. I know what it is... in that far corner. Can you see it too?

I know, I should stay inside, I should take refuge in the coziness of my home, but a force bigger than myself is pushing me forward... to go outside... to the garden. I have no other choice than obey it.

The skies have a leaden lowness to them, and the winds are chilly. As I keep walking I see trees swaying under paper-pale sky, and under my feet pure white piercing the flesh with thousand icy knives.

I’m almost certain that Barbegazi lives in my garden. I mean a troll as bleak as snow and as rigid as ice must dwell among the underground caves beneath my garden during the long cold winter months, because on certain days, on those dreary days when the sun decides to hide from us human, I can see him lurking in the garden. But is more than that… I can feel him! I am trapped in his frigid gizzards! Soon the sun will shine and burn that snow away. But first, while people are inside their cozy homes and nobody knows it, something monstrous is arising... the Troll is coming up!

Everything has turned quiet, and ominous, not a bird fluttering around the bird feeders, not a mourning dove searching the frozen ground for a spare seed.... only that dreadful sound of snow cracking under an evil foot. The huge foot print engraved in the snow is enough to send a cold chill running down my spine... I'm running, running...

Across the valley floor, up the little hill behind the garden like a stallion I go, over the field, through the garden, through the gate... unmindful of what I leave behind... Hurry! The troll is coming! Behind the Troll I see something... or someone else! A woman! A woman as ashen and horrid as the Abominable Snow Man himself rambles behind the winter troll who lives in my garden...

I can see how the stalactites around her lengthen as every droplet of water leave its mineral laden trace on the ground. She pauses for a moment contemplating the fragile shafts of sunlight that pierce the shrubbery casting multicolored shadows on the ice-covered ground. She looks fascinated by its luster, and as she extends her arm to catch the tiny rivulets of water trickling from a tree branch, like tears to the frozen land, I suddenly realized who she is... (meee!)

She is the Snow Bride!—the poor poor woman given as companion to the Abominable Snow Man by the most terrible of all terrible, the sinister Winterlord. If you would come to my garden you would think that the supernatural don’t happen here, you would only see the usual trees and shrubbery waiting patiently... waiting to be awaken from their winter slumber by our Father Sun. You will not be frightened, for only few can see these things...

 Perhaps it is because I was born as the old grandfather clock chimed midnight and the earth's circle of illumination followed the summer solstice. Perhaps I see these things because my first breath coincided with the blistering breath of summer as it came up from under the ground wrapping us into the new season, and thus, winter is our enemy. It is written on the blanket of snow where my feet sink, in the shape of wings printed on the snow, some strands of colorful dust, like fairy dust on bright summer nights, a scent... there is no words to describe my life...