Snow
By Anna Otto
anna_otto@hotmail.com

Classification: VA (does it count if it's not Mulder or Scully angst? 
Just wondering...)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The Red and The Black
Summary: A lonely man in the mountains receives a letter.
Disclaimer: All the characters are property of Chris Carter, 1013 
Productions, and FOX. No copyright infringement intended, no monetary 
profit is made.

***

I have always loved snow. I grew up in South Dakota, where snow 
was a way of life, where my father had to get up every morning and clear

a narrow path from the steps of our house to the car. It was a tradition

I respected, but never fully understood. No amount of antifreeze could
start our old Ford in winter -- and even if it did start, it would be 
unable to navigate the landscape more fitting to Alaska than to the 
continental America.

Washington DC winters had lacked the blinding white opulence of 
the snow country of my childhood, and at times I wanted to go back, to 
take a vacation well-deserved but never forthcoming. The January cold 
would melt my heart a little, the flames in the fireplace would cast 
warm shadows on the simple wooden bench and table, much the same way 
as they do now, and I would nurture my nostalgia for a day. Or two.

There is a crystal clarity in the air of Quebec, Canada. It is 
the simplicity and grandeur of the mountains, the harsh stoicism of 
nature conquered by winter. It is the white sky with clouds that 
swallow the rays of sun. It is the clean, captivating beauty of snow.

It filters my photographic memory, and I inspect its fragments 
as if they were cells in a dark dungeon, unlocked with a rusty old key. 
I take another deep drag on my cigarette and lace the frosted window 
with gray smoke.

I give a beautiful woman away to her future husband on a mild 
autumn day. The trees are already bereft of their leaves, only a silk 
tapestry on the ground until heavy November rains wash them away in 
anticipation of winter storms. I listen to her laugh, and the sound 
is exquisite -- as dazzling as the first time I heard it, when she was 
just a little child. The tall man waiting at the altar takes her hand 
gingerly, and I silently commend him for treating her as a cherished 
prize.

Because he is not aware that another man, to whom he bears a
startling resemblance, has been searching for this treasure with more 
persistence than pirates search for Captain Morgan's buried diamonds.

Because it is hard to find her.

I see a little girl and she is smiling at me because I brought 
her a present. The wrappings are torn away and discarded impatiently, 
and she is holding a chessboard. The black and white pieces scatter 
on the floor, and she laughs momentarily, gathering them in a pile, 
then quickly forgetting her gift. Her mother smiles indulgently at me 
and says that she is much too young to understand this game yet, and 
that I would never learn what to do with children. It hurts for a 
second, and then I shrug my shoulders self-deprecatingly and put the 
charming expression back on my face. I practice it in the mirror for 
greater effect.

I remember how my father taught me the names of each figure, 
how I studied them for hours, drawing a picture of the chessboard in 
my mind and playing match after match with an invisible opponent 
because my clumsy fingers were too slow to catch up with my commands. 
I won from my father a week later, and then I learned how to give in 
and lose convincingly.

I should have given the gift to the boy, I think fleetingly, 
I will have to be more inventive for her birthday next year. Buying
gifts for him has always been a challenge, too. Meanwhile, he 
quickly appropriates the lacquered box, inviting me for a game, 
eyeing me curiously as if he is still trying to figure me out. It 
takes an hour, but I win. He asks politely whether I would like a 
rematch. Next time when I visit, I say. 

A rematch is always something to hope for.

I do not like Christmas, the forced jollies and the stilted 
banality of carols. The pretty wreaths and shiny objects signify 
only a pathetic ornament for an everyday life. But it is almost 
tolerable in the year when my son is six years old. He writes a list 
for Santa Claus and hides it in the red stocking hung above the 
fireplace. My smile is happy and genuine as I read his wishes, as 
I wonder whether I have ever been this innocent.

I know that the answer is positive, and I reach for 
affirmation in the lost cells of the dungeon. I recite my own 
Christmas list from the year when I was five. It is easy to 
remember... all I wanted was a car. A real one. Automobile 
revolution had reached me and I swayed. 

Maybe I wasn't so innocent even then.

On Christmas morning, I have to fly to New York. The 
red-eye flight will not wait as I kiss his small sleeping form, 
and as I fill his red stocking with a few gifts that do not 
correspond to his wishes. His mother, at peace with her world, 
forgives me and does not tell me that I should stay.

At times, I hope she will throw a good tantrum. Doesn't
my absence deserve some emotion, after all?

The snow starts falling, as if a mad artist draws giant 
white strokes with a wide brush that obscures a few detailed 
trees. I wonder if there will be too much snow, if my little 
friend, Jack, will show up today. He had never failed to do 
so previously, and I speculate whether it's because he is fond 
of money or whether he is brave and foolish enough.

And then I remember a slender young woman serving tea 
on a cold winter afternoon, and I realize that if I do not 
leave right away, I will get stuck on the road because of layers 
and layers of snow that still keeps coming. Her husband asks me 
if I would like to come and work with him, because it's 
interesting and it's a government job, and it brings most 
unexpected benefits. He adds slyly that it's exciting and 
dangerous, and a woman smiles at me, asking me whether I am 
foolish enough to accept the offer.

And I answer inwardly that I am foolish but not because 
I am about to say yes, but because I will seat here until the 
latest hour permissible by the social etiquette. Because there 
is excitement and danger in seeing her, in accidentally grazing 
my fingers against her hand as she hands me the cup, in hearing 
her voice. It is not electricity that heats water inside the 
teapot. It is the warmth of her blood. I speak to her in charades 
that only I can understand and appreciate. If she knows the 
double meaning of my words, she doesn't show it. But she might, 
and I find pleasure in the game, in predicting the future with 
her by my side... In designing the future.

Her husband is my friend, and after I accept the job he 
offers, we celebrate by opening a champagne bottle that they keep 
in the basement. The primate in me wonders how many champagne 
glasses would it take to get her to sleep with me. More than 
one bottle, obviously, and I almost sigh out loud with regret. 
How many glasses of whiskey to put him to sleep? I toast to the 
upcoming changes in our lives, and they both smile encouragingly. 
Don't they know that change is a finer form of Chinese torture?

I get lost on the way home, and as I circle highway after 
highway, I think only of her full lips that offer heaven to any 
man lucky enough to be admitted. 

I didn't know, then, that one could still tumble from 
heaven to hell faster than a meteor pulled from the sky by 
gravity. And I followed in the steps of Lucifer, reigning in the 
netherworlds of human weakness and sin. 

The fire in my cabin is the same fire that must burn in 
the deeper regions of inferno, the same fire that I remember 
blazing in the fiery blue air of New Mexico. It is cleansing and 
deadly; it is hotter than the orange sun that hangs in the 
cloudless sky. It is consuming the evidence of our crimes, 
simultaneously ravaging my enemy.

And some enemies become dearer to us than our friends. 
There are only fifteen days from hate to...

Respect.

The snow stops as suddenly as it started. The boy will 
come today after he visits the post office and opens my mailbox. 
And in looking at the return address on the envelope, in 
shuffling through the loose leaves of paper, in searching the 
words for a scrap of affection, I find hope.

I open the door to the impatient knock, and I school my 
features into the usual mask of indifference, trying to still my 
beating pulse lest the bearer of hope understands the 
importance of his gifts.

And as I read the return address on the envelope, as I see 
my post office box number and a "Return to sender" stamp, I feel 
heavy despair settle like snow over my heart, extinguishing the 
fire inside it.

I murmur my thanks and close the door numbly. I throw 
more logs in the fireplace, and as it eats my letter slowly, I hope 
that it will ignite and crack the ice core inside my chest. Because 
it is heavy and I am too old to bear it.

Then I retrace my steps quickly and call out to the 
ten-year-old, who turns around curiously, suspicion and interest 
mixed on the small face. I invite him in for tea and he hesitates 
for a nanosecond.

Then Jack nods happily and walks through the snow back to 
my door. As he drinks from a huge steaming mug that obscures his 
face save for a pair of black inquisitive eyes, I type another 
letter. And I address it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
The X-Files Division.



Finita la comedia.