Glass Drops in Winter

It’s impossible not to lose yourself in the story, when every twig drips with crystalline ice and a cushion of chill softens the edges of bare trees.

When you’ve never been out on your own before, the cold and the silence are pearls, along with your own thoughts. The crunch of hiking boots and gravel and ice, the thumping of your heart as you press upwards, the spray of the waterfall on the air, all occupy your mind without room for any other concerns. Your ears and torso warm and sweat under layers of winter gear, but your legs start to freeze and numb under only a single layer of denim. The sky above the bare branches and the jagged peaks beyond them shifts from flat white, breaking into gold with the setting sun.

Rivulets that used to trickle down the grassy slopes have solidified into sprays of twinkling spheres on the tip of each grass blade. You lean over to pick one, unsteady on the ice, and suck on it like a popsicle of clean water. The blade cuts the sides of your chapped lips, and you wonder at the artistry in those clumps of glass globes.

No one else follows this trail, as the town below is headed toward night, lighting up like starlight reflected under a spotlight moon. You break through the trees for a moment, panting, and stare silently over the twinkling expanse below. The river has curved away, and under the influence of silence you find yourself speaking aloud.

“It’s beautiful,” you whisper, then wonder at how small the words seem, once spoken.

Location: Schladming, Austria