I should have worn thicker pants. 

Jeans, at least. But I ran out of the cabin without thinking much about it, so I had to carry on with the summer linen pants I had on. 

 

The snow lay thick on the road; I couldn’t tell where road met forest. It looked to wipe the whole world clean. 

 

But snow didn’t come to the rest of the world just because it came to me, 

right? 

 

Humans are quite self-absorbed in that way.                                   Or maybe it’s just me.

There was a time when I teared up at the sight of snow.

​

​

He sat there blankly for a time. His mind seemed all twisted around, like putty. Or maybe it was my mind that was all twisted around. 

Ringo Starr’s singing in the background wasn’t helping either of us. He sang of octopuses. 

What makes a man want to sing about octopuses, I do not know. 

 

Perhaps inspired by Starr’s song, he told me about the harbor in Korea. And about the fish they catch there. It wasn't that he felt obliged to talk; he just didn’t like the silence between us.

I nodded.

But the right words wouldn't come out. It was always that way.

Whenever I was with him, the words just wouldn't flow.

His story ran out halfway through, like a trickle of water being sucked up by sand–or is it snow? But he didn’t look embarrassed, and I didn’t feel any embarrassment for him. We sat there, father and daughter, sipping our coffee. 

This will continue until one of us dies or disappears. To break the rules of this formula means to break the space-time continuum. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​