The cold winter landscape stretched as far as the eye could see.

Silent, imposing, harsh and unforgiving.

The bitter wind cut ferociously through the last remaining leaves of autumn. Even those leaves had turned brown and brittle; they were fading away, sighing and torn, tired of fighting the strength of a giant.The leaves were swept away, brushed aside with an uncaring sweep of the iron hand of winter.

The winter landscape was meant to be this way, sleek and bare, naked, exposed.

Yet at the same time, it was hidden, discreet and secretive. Hidden beneath the virgin snow that had scattered itself across the pale blades of grass and balding turf.

Each snowflake like a soldier, crawling over its brothers to slide into the right place, over the right spot.

Birds did not call. Silence reigned in this white valley. Every chirp and whistle had long been stifled by the stealing breath of ice that wove its way through the valley, into every nook and cranny; a long, winding, slithery snake.

The winter landscape is cold.

It is silent.

I could lose myself in it, sit on an icy hill all day long, staring at an icicle that would release glass beads every other moment. Watching the perfect beauty of the trees, stark and bold against the snowy backdrop. Reaching forward and feeling for the branches, fingers meeting the rough grain of the wood, wandering over the crumbling bark.

The birch trees are bare now, reft and bereft of their crowns. A little shaken by the storms and chariots of snow, but still there, still standing silently against the blinding whiteness.

This place is cold.

It is distant.

It is almost, almost perfect.

And it is apart.

I am as like to that place as a rock is to a canyon.

Only, my imperfection is a crevasse cutting across the ice.

It goes deep, and I am an idiot.

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