The Christmas Party

The cold cuts through like a knife, piercing the skin. Each pore is knifed by an icicle of air which penetrates deep into the muscles and further into the soul. The air hangs heavy, burning the throat when breathed in too deeply. Such is the winter nights in the mountains, which can be harsh, merciless, and beautiful. It is so cold that the door hinge is covered in ice, and the door has a thin veil of ice that covers the front of it, spidering across the oaken wood delving deep into the porous density of the wood. There stands a house, an old house with an old way of standing. A home is much like a man. Much can be understand about its age simply by how it stands upon the ground. The old home holds a majesty that compels you to nod in agreement at its age and its wealth of knowledge. Much can be understood by how a house sits upon the ground. The lights lightly splay across the snow covered ground from the back of the house, darkness maintaining its almost absolute monopoly everywhere else. The cold has not taken all. Youth fights its powers with acts of social dissonance and apparent individuality, wishing to break free from the confinements of nature, and more importantly, past failures, which hang lightly, like mistletoe, teasing with abject innocence. 

Voices cut through the air, echoing with greater power than if the sun was out and warmth was in control of the landscape. Although less is allowed to live in the cold landscapes of a barren mountainside, what does find a way to exist is magnified and is allowed to control its own destiny. through thinly veiled paned glass and plastic wrapping hugging tightly the wooden outcropping of an old window, the night looks into the home filled with both old and new stories asking to be told. Smoke, hormones, and voices hover as thoughts, ideals, and hopes attempt to mingle. Neon screens glow in the brightly lit rooms that hold to many people with to many urges and not enough time to expound on all the questions of life and petty pains. 

When hovering above the home one sees two lone fingers filled with internal energies wanting to be releases. Braving the unforgiving cold, the two poorly dressed souls venture unto the cold landscape and attempt to knee step through high snow and higher passions. One runs quickly behind the tree, another follows close behind, grabbing the arm of the other. With a quick short giggle she escapes and flees behind another tree, allowing the cold to sink deeper into her fiery heart and her passionate mind. She is kept warm by the furnace within herself, working through her limbs, torso, and expelling from her pores. The other runs again, grabbing her, and pulling her into the snow laying on top of her, enjoying the success of her hunt while regretting the decision of falling into the gripping snow which drains life from her bare fingers and exposed neck. 

A squeal is expressed from the mouth of the young woman bellow the power and grip of the other young woman. The two women wrestle lightly before realizing the folly of their ways and enter the warmth of the old home filled with young souls. The home stands alone. All else is empty, cold, and unsurpassed in cruelty. With youth caught in a cycle of reinvention that plagues all generations with its reality of inevitable failure, laughter, hunger, passions, and urges are controlled, unleashed, and rejected within the walls of a home. Some will go home, some will stay. Some will forget, some will remember. Yet all will live, die, and understand.