Echo Chamber

Winter was an echo chamber made of mica and blankets pulled warm and claustrophobic over our heads. Every word we said came back to us, smelling newly of the grain of dirt at the center of each flake. Everything stopped. The sky at night was magenta and full of static. The falling snow made a soundless sound, not unlike that of a long held breath slowly escaping from relenting lips. In the feral garden across the way, the roses turned into scientist's toys, indistinguishable from those we had once seen dipped into a bucket of dry ice, and then, miraculously, shattered.