Weight of the White

The world outside Arthur’s kitchen window had bled to nothing but white, a thick, insistent fall that swallowed sound whole. It was past midnight, way past, the kind of hour where even the hum of the fridge felt like a shout. The snow wasn’t falling, not really; it was descending, a slow, deliberate surrender. Each flake, a tiny ghost, settling onto the already heavy drifts that piled against the sill, blurring the sharp edges of the night. He hadn’t turned on any lights, just stood there in the faint, bruised light from the streetlamp across the way, watching it.

Arthur gripped the mug, the ceramic cool despite the almost-hot coffee inside. His hands were always cold lately, even in the house. He was fifty-four, and the cold just seemed to stick to him now. His wife, Martha, would’ve told him to put a sweater on, or built a fire, or maybe just taken his hands in hers and rubbed some warmth into them. But Martha was gone, three years now, and the house had learned to breathe without her. It sagged, like he did, in places. The floorboards groaned when he shifted his weight, a sad, private language.

Tonight, though, even the house was quiet. The snow had swallowed its groans, its creaks. The world was a mute film unspooling outside the glass. He could feel the silence pressing in, a physical thing, heavy and soft like the snow itself. It wasn't peaceful, not really. It was too absolute, too empty. Every breath he took felt loud, a rasp in the vast quiet. He could hear the blood thrumming in his ears, a low, persistent drumbeat against the absolute absence of anything else.

He remembered a fight, years ago. Not a big one, not by most people’s standards, but it had carved a deep groove in his memory. It had been snowing then too, not this heavy, but enough to make the world outside soft. Martha had been crying, her face blotchy, her voice small. "You never listen, Arthur," she’d said, and he’d just stared out the window, at the falling flakes, trying to find an answer, trying to find a way to make it right. He hadn’t. He’d just stood there, letting the words hang between them, heavy and cold as ice.

He took a long sip of coffee, the bitter warmth a shock against his tongue. The windowpane was icy, a thin film of condensation already forming at the edges where his breath hit it. His reflection stared back, a gaunt, tired man superimposed over the falling snow. He didn't like what he saw. Didn't like the shadow under his eyes, the way his jaw had started to slacken. Didn't like the ghost of that old argument still hanging in the silence, sharper now that there was nothing else to distract him.

The snow kept falling, relentless. It felt like it was trying to bury something, to cover up the past, the mistakes, the things left unsaid. But the silence, that was the real enemy. It let everything rise to the surface, every sharp edge of regret, every dull ache of loneliness. He thought about turning on the TV, just for noise, any noise, but the thought felt like a betrayal of the moment. Like he was running from something he needed to face, even if it was just the profound, cold quiet of his own life.

A car went by, distant, its tires making no sound, just a brief flicker of headlights through the white. Then it was gone, swallowed up, and the silence rushed back, fuller, heavier than before. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, feeling the chill seep into his skin. He closed his eyes, and the white still burned behind his eyelids. He could almost hear Martha’s voice, soft, tired. *Arthur, you’re freezing. Come to bed.* But there was no voice, only the hush of the snow, the quiet settling deeper into the bones of the house, into the very marrow of his own quiet night.

He opened his eyes again. The world was utterly transformed, rendered alien and beautiful and terrifying in its quietude. A single icicle, thick as his thumb, had formed on the outside of the sill, glinting faintly. He wondered how long he’d stood there, how much time had slipped away, unnoticed in the snow’s gentle, persistent fall. It felt like hours, a lifetime. He turned from the window, the floorboards groaning a protest beneath his feet, and walked back into the deeper, darker silence of the house.