snow angels
published: 2013-01-17My six year old son bursts into my parents’ home. I’m standing there making a phone call as opposed to sledding outside in the snow. He is frantic: he needs a camera, quick. He is followed by my father who has only just returned from Tanzania. His face is tanned and torn, spots of pigment decorate his forehead and hands. He too is looking for a camera, a distracted version of my son, his movements slower.
“We need to take pictures of the angels in the snow,” my father states to himself.
My mind’s eye recreates an image of angels. Small ones, upright in the snow. Made of white candle wax perhaps. I follow them outside and see the imprints of their bodies in the snow, where they had lain flat on the ground and waved their arms and legs up and down. I now notice their backs are wet. My son’s. And my dad’s.