Nucleation
In the hours that sew daylight into the pocket of night, they wait. Snowfall is a different beast in the dark, intriguing under moonlight as the drops meld together upon landing. They watch the individual flakes drift toward those already snuggled into to heap. There's something familiar about the instinct to huddle after the fall.
They're doing it now.
He sits a step above her, a protective position even in this innocent moment. She's taking in the tapered shaft of light from the streetlamp and all that filters through its beam. Between shivers, she explains the temperatures required for the homogeneous nucleation of cloud droplets, birthing the crystallized forms currently obeying gravity. She talks of a shifting atmosphere and he understands the concept.
They're living it now.
The first white blanket of the season comes while the city lays in blind slumber, ignorant of its arrival. Careless sleep will break later and waking eyes will greet a snow already marred. For now, the unblemished sheet is draped gently over the visible world, offering shelter in the purity. Because she grants her mind a leash on which to roam, she can play with the fantasy that the snow makes everything cleaner, untainted. But just like the flakes hold onto one another, his brain latches onto the day's ghastly images. Picks them apart for explanations not found in plummeting temperatures.
They're desynchronized now.
She has let go, science bringing the answer to how and in possession of this, she can enjoy nature's show. His dissatisfaction with the lack of why allows no appreciation of a quiet eve of muffled sounds in crisp air. There is too much pollution in the cause and this overcomes his natural sanguinity. Shadows dim the welcoming glint of white, a pretext for the morning's duty.
A family will gain no true peace by the words they must deliver tomorrow. Answers are no substitute for miracles. And while he believes in resurrection, he cannot perform the task. She finds his faith childish and for once, he's inclined to agree. Still, from the notion of a future reunion the family might pull some closure; he'd spotted an ornate crucifix hovering over their sobbing forms. He'll see it again soon, his imperfection made sharper in the presence of the saving cross.
They'll thank him now.
As the moon yawns above the drifting flakes multiply into a dense fall, compacting on itself by volume to form a thick shell. It's an attribute she shares at times. Yet she feels open now, strangely so and looks to her companion, his dark hair shining with slowly melting invaders. As the piling precipitation crowds them closer together, he is a world removed. A transparent soul lays trapped behind emotions she recognizes but cannot permit. The day was laden with failure but the night is too beautiful for mourning.
A bird has found the pleasure of crunching snow and hops its way across the covered pavement, marking its path like an autograph. A tiny being disrupts a universe of stillness and he watches its determined legs pointedly ignore the cold, refusing to take wing. A female, he tells her with grudging admiration. There will be no worms sleeping beneath its feet but it moves on as one who cares not for the inconveniences of destiny. She wants him to emulate that tonight, cast off anything that isn't crystallized glory. The chill evaporates in the heat of a look and they share more than a step.
They're nuclear now.
Nucleation: the localized budding of a distinct thermodynamic phase.