Breakfast tasted like nothing in particular on this non-particular day, and when Andrew woke up that morning, he wasn’t expecting that anything special was about to happen. His parents were downstairs already, watching TV while they ate their eggs and spicy breakfast potatoes. Andrew slid into his usual spot at the breakfast table that sat by the big window looking out onto the back porch and beyond it the vast Arizona desert. The clouds were white and heavy that day, but Andrew didn’t notice as he picked over his eggs and un-spicy potatoes that his mom had made special for him. He hadn’t had much sleep, so it took him a while to realize that his dad was calling his name. He lifted his head blearily.
“Hmm?”
“Hear that, Andrew? Weather report says it’s gonna snow.” He sounded like he only half-believed it but was clicking the remote through the various news and weather channels muttering, “Snow. Snow. Snow.”
Andrew nodded and went back to playing with his food. His mom brought him a glass of milk and greeted him cheerily. He managed a smile back to her. As he looked up at her, he couldn’t help but notice her weather-worn face; the healthy color that she had always had now reminded him of old leather, her light blue eyes beset with wrinkles and her cheeks sort of loose and hanging on her jaws so that she looked much older than she was. Her feathery silver-white hair lay lightly on her narrow shoulders, her breasts sagged in her thin, flowery robe, and even her
smile seemed dim. Andrew wanted to reach out, to reach for her hand and touch her somehow, reassure her that he was okay, that he wasn’t going anywhere, but instead slumped further in his chair gripping his sweatshirt sleeves in his bony fingers. He looked listlessly at the milk, feeling helpless as usual. The TV was still playing in the background and his dad was still talking to it.
“I have lived in Yuma, Arizona for more than 15 years and I have never—ever—seen it snow.”
This time Andrew listened. He turned to look out the window and noticed the heavy white clouds and the quiet, waiting desert, sitting in sunless shadow, like in the grey hour before sunrise—only it was already past ten o’clock. Andrew got up and took his plate to the kitchen, then headed back upstairs to his room. The room was large and mostly empty. It was a strange place to sleep in because it was cool and open instead of close and cozy. It was also dark. The walls had been painted a very dark green, so even on sunny days, the room gave Andrew the feeling that it was nighttime. He climbed into his bed and played a game on his phone. His fingers were playing, but his mind was elsewhere. An hour passed, and Andrew felt himself dissolving into a world of nothingness and boredom in the dark and quiet room, his blinds pulled down, his lights too dim to brighten the dark green walls, his mind too tired to feel the anticipation of what was coming.
And then—Andrew was half asleep when he heard his phone chime. It was his mother. “It’s snowing”, the text read. Andrew sat up from bed, shaking off the last dregs of sleep as he let his feet touch the cool wooden floor. He started to leave and then reconsidered, went back into his room, and pulled on a pair of running shoes and a hoodie before heading downstairs. He found his parents standing at the big window, standing close to each other, but not touching, each in their own private world of silent awe. Then Andrew looked above their heads and saw—it was snowing. Andrew blinked. Yes, it was snowing in the desert. Andrew hadn’t seen snow since before his family left Kansas, since he was only eight years old. He was now twenty-three. It had been fifteen years. He stood, unmoving for a moment, his tired, opal-colored eyes fixed on the snow outside the window. The world around him became soft and silent, the floor seemed to disappear beneath his feet, and he felt as if he were levitating slightly. He moved, like a figure in a dream, toward the back door and opened it. He glided across the porch and at last stepped out from under the porch roof and into the snowfall.
Andrew gazed silently at the desert, at the snow, a small smile leaking across his face. There was no wind, so the flakes floated down, like ashes after a wildfire, pure white and small and gentle. They were lighter than air. As they landed, they melted away before Andrew’s eyes like shimmering illusions, angelic apparitions that dance before the eyes of the dying. The world had never seemed so silent. Andrew tilted back his head, and all was white and all was light, and the snowflakes lodged in his eyelashes and melted on his forehead. He stuck out his tongue. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter to him than those tiny white flakes. He laughed a child-like laugh, a sound foreign to his ears, but one he liked hearing. He laughed again and raised his arms, the sleeves of his sweatshirt receding and exposing his wrists to the snow. He felt the flakes as they alighted on his arms and melted into his fresh lacerations. Last night’s ordeal was briefly remembered and then washed away by the innocent whiteness of the snow. Then it was as if last night no longer existed. There was only here and now, and in the snow, he felt new and perfect. He indulged the feeling. He reveled in it.
Andrew opened his eyes; he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them. The smile had widened across his face, and he could feel it stretching his cold cheeks, wrinkling the skin around his eyes. He laughed again and began to turn, round and round, laughing at the sheer impossibility of the moment, the absurdity of snow in the desert. The snow was beginning to stick now, and how strange it was to see his mother’s cactus, his father’s wheelbarrow full of tools covered with a lacy layer of snow! Andrew stopped turning and faced the white stucco house with its red tiled roof. His parents materialized in the doorway; their arms crossed against the cold. They were watching him. He could feel that they were pleased to see him so enraptured in snow-covered exuberance. Andrew wasn’t close enough to see, but he knew his mother’s eyes were shining. He beamed at them, and his dad raised his hand in greeting. His dad was smiling too, beneath the gruff, black mustache.
Andrew turned back to the desert. Snow was falling. And it was falling on him. For the first time in what felt like forever, Andrew began to feel the cold. It filled him simultaneously with a rush of excitement and a flood of calm. He could feel the blood pulsing through his veins reaching his hands and feet. He could feel his lungs expanding, filling with damp, cold air. He breathed, deep. The frigid air rushed up his nose, revitalized his brain, and invigorated his body. He suddenly felt as if he could run, run as far as the desert would take him, and never grow tired, or heavy, or bored again. And the snow would cover his lashes and stick in his hair and flow in his blood, cleaning his wounds and healing his soul.
