Enchanted by cold

You know, it happens sometimes.

When the cold — the conqueror — finds that all the lands he has already claimed are no longer enough for him. His restless vanity demands more, demands heavier proof of his omnipotence. The boundless, snow-buried taiga is not enough. The white cities locked in winter’s spell are not enough. The tons of cottony snow hanging in the depths of a frozen sky are not enough. Not even a shivering, panicked America will satisfy him.

The grandest of scales soon lose their power to impress… And do you know what this conqueror seeks now?

He wants victims. Conquered ice-lumps, shuffling down the streets like penguins. Frosted-over little figurines for his personal chess game.

He no longer hesitates to slip through a carelessly opened door. Like a bloodhound, he rushes into buses and trams, hunting for prey—and like a bloodhound, he smells fear. He smells the frozen toes, the cold shiver beneath a winter coat… and once he finds his victim, he will not let go. He will finish them off with the blades of a mad wind, smash them against the ice, stab them with spears of snow… Frightening, isn’t it?

But sometimes it gets worse.

He doesn’t only enter through doors — he seeps into our homes in sly drafts. Slowly, imperceptibly, he touches our skin and crawls along it like a snake. From the feet to the shins, higher up the legs, across the stomach, from cold fingers to elbows, to the shoulders…

He does it like a spider, skillfully wrapping his prey in webbing. So weightlessly, so subtly, that the poor soul doesn’t even notice, going about their business with warm socks on their feet. But that will hardly save them — because the victim is already trapped in the cold’s web, and sooner or later, it will reach their heart. That’s how it happens…

I’ve seen such people, turned by the cold—an ice shard where their heart should be. Their hands no warmer than snow, and in their eyes, a sorrow as deep as the northern ocean. Icebergs and floes drift in their souls. They no longer believe in tenderness or love… because they simply don’t remember what those are. To bring them back is almost impossible. Rarely does there exist enough warmth to melt their snowbound deserts.

But… I do know of a few rare cases.

And that’s why right now it’s so important that we don’t let go of each other’s hands, that we keep warming one another. Because the cold is prowling around us like a hound.

And we don’t want to go back to him… do we?

*written 11.01.2014 http://snowsnow.mypage.ru/v-bloknote/obrashnnie.html

*translated to Eng 11.08.2025