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A man walks from a house to the edge of a lake. The house he leaves behind is white, so it blends in with all the snow. It’s modern and elegant. Straight edges and lines, levels, elevated, lots of windows, and even now someone looks out one after him.

His breath screams out like a chemtrail as he stands by the edge of the partially frozen lake, his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. The air is eerily still. He hears ice crack and snow fall from a limb, hitting the white ground with a muffled thud. Deep winter it is. Deep like the trials of his heart. He never meant to go crazy. He had been high on drugs.

He tilts his head and looks up at the blue winter sky. A white sun looks down at him. There are a few stray clouds, but the rest is a clean blue. He turns to look back at the trail. He steps toward it and begins his daily hike. It cleanses his mind to walk outside in this seemingly endless refrigerator. Mountains in the distance. High. Snow-capped. Looks like Norway. But it’s Canada. He thinks of riding his motorcycle. The speed flashes through his mind. The helmet. The throttle. The curves. Straightaways. The sound of the engine. The flash of the landscape. Now it’s in the garage. Silent and still, waiting for spring and the power of his crotch.

He’s surrounded by trees, and a cascading forest. The foothills slope upward, he walks along their legs. The man picks up a walking stick, drives the point. His boots crunch through the snow. His breath is like dragon fire. He reflects on all his mistakes. And now he sees how people look at him. They don’t say anything, but they think it. He can read minds, eyes, and gestures. They pretend he is part of them, but he knows he’s not. Not after the family gathering where he lashed out at her. The upturned table, the yelling, the crying. It didn’t really happen. He was there, but he wasn’t. Then the sudden kiss. It wasn’t him. She had been making banana pudding. He ran upstairs and locked himself in the bedroom.

He stops to catch his breath. He’s at a point where he can look down and see the lake spread out like a misshapen icy bruise. He finds a rock that serves as a chair. The muted air soothes him. Someone had wanted to call the police. She protested even after all of it. Let him cool his jets. Let him be alone. He had climbed out a torn window instead and ran away to the center of town.

---

He smacked his boots together to rid them of snow before he went into the house. She had coffee ready for him. The house was warm and quiet. It was a Sunday in early February. He sat there in the kitchen with her. She looks at him with concern. “How are you feeling?” she asks. “Better,” he replies.

“You’ll behave when they visit?” she aches to know.

“You can always lock me in a room if you’re that concerned.”

She scoots her chair away and goes to the sink and dumps her coffee.

“What did you do that for?” he asks.

“You make me so uncomfortable,” she says.

He swipes a hand at his own coffee cup, and it flies from the table and smashes on the floor. “There’s the door,” he says with steam. He gets up and goes to his office and closes himself in. He hears the garage door open, and a car engine start. He peers out a window and watches her drive away, again.

Alone once more with the memories that haunt.

“It wasn’t me… It didn’t happen.”