Icy Drumming

His spindly legs prickle even under the fluorescent light, with snow in between his fingers and his heart drumming in his ears, knocking on his ribs with such stamina he himself couldn't fathom. His coat rises with each breath, one inhalation feeling like his last. His tongue is ribboned with snowflakes, daggers of icy water creeping down and down his throat and swimming in his peanut butter and jam-rimmed belly. It is futile. He couldn't fight. He couldn't stand and battle the men. Those snowmen in the snow world of a house. He cants his head and finds his clawed hoodie, his barely shielded head, in the low mirror. And oh, the sore of his shoulders, slapped with loose rhythm by icicle hands. A pained groan escapes him and the room shakes, he thinks. The bathroom trembles with belatedly prophesied transformation.

"No," he croaks. First the ceiling grows roots, and a chandeleir sprouts, accompanied with more swaying and the sound of ice bumping and tinkering. His breath quickens, and when he tries to fold his legs they cower and collapse in front of him, betraying him. But then he still initiates to move although it hurts, because he doesn't forget. Those fairytales. Those myths. The truth all along. The slow yet deadly gain of ice on his flesh will hurt a million times more than the ache he feels.

By the time he is in the mimicry of standing on both feet, the bathroom has shrunk, with the ceiling thickening with ice and daydream. Later, the floor will breathe with the snowmen and he needs to get out before the walls and the floor do, too.

With his head down he miraculously manages to squat and pass through the door with his whole body still, as he knows it, intact and his ice skates tacitly with his feet and the large expanse of ice. It is almost dark outside, and as a breeze kisses him a voluminous chatter follows. He grapples for his flashlight in one baggy pocket, then turns it on, flashing each corner of his bedroom with yellow light. Ice, ice, ice. All is ice. Then the floor creaks, so he's got to move. That's the trick; you've got to keep moving, keep yourself warm, keep being human. The rules of life among snowmen always have the word "keep." But in this life you can't always keep the ones you love. You can't keep trust. You can't keep Earth. You get snow, and then you begin to keep and not keep again. He finds it hilarious, tiresome, this make-believe gone real. He warms his hands, quick, and skates onward to elsewhere. Anywhere. Somewhere. Just not here, where everything is scarier alone.