Chapter Eight: For Us, It Is the Snow, Part 2
The sun peeks past two massifs that stood side by side. The luminosity passes to and from behind and through the narrow but steep and hollow chasm depths, the meagerness of light not quite encapsulating all of it yet. Rigid cliffs, parallel to one another, are free in their canyons. Left what looked to be a crack straight down the middle of the mountain ranges. The space in-between them, or gap, acted as a dark conduit. Huskies and pine. The gorge froze. The lake of water at the bottom of the ravines' kinetic energies drained until they arranged into crystals, and the lower levels of this landscape remained in their stagnate state. The massifs stared directly at the opposing bodies like sentinels, maintaining a vigilant watch over each other and these barren, cold wastelands, undoubtedly and forever.
As the sun rose, so too with it, did the company. The pristine white snow shimmered as it melted away, leaving behind large patches soon overtaken by blemishes on the ground where vegetation sprouted from its frozen cumbers.
The storm had subsided hours prior. Delilah believed the coast was clear and managed to grab some shuteye before Jehovah disappeared. Michael and Lucifer were in a panic; she rose and asked, “What’s going on?” Jehovah is gone!
He wasn’t anywhere in sight. Not in the snow. They searched frantically atop the largest, biggest pile out there shoveling the excrement. Lucifer retrieved the atlas from his luggage and unfurled it open and uncapped a pen from its fuselage. Instead of securing the cap onto the pen's end, he spat it onto the ground. Michael picked it up, and he began to draw the circumference of a circle on the blank section of the map where they were. The back of the map, with its brittle and worn-down edges from repeated foldings. Held memories, organization, and character to the broader charters. Lucifer had already doodled little smiley faces on the back and corresponding coordinates: Latitude: 178.2232° N Longitude: -115.6267° E, 178.2232° N, 115.6267° W.
He plotted lines at the center points of the circle on the back of the map, where he drew where they were to go.
Michael searched east and west, Lucifer south, and Delilah north. His plan involved a quick five hundred-meter-radius search. Covering five-hundred-meters out, circling five-hundred-meters around, and then returning five-hundred-meters to the center—to check for Jehovah. Surely, he couldn't have gone far.
They could see one another out in the open but they all got distracted.
Michael sprinted to both of his marks where the snow was gone and found nothing but super-dewy grass. Enough to slide the five-hundred-meter round. He slid and found enjoyment in that sliding on the grass back and forth like it was his day off.
Delilah wound up finding a squirrel in a dollop of snow with an acorn in its mouth. It's two sharp front teeth drumming into the acorn attempting to feast on the nut for breakfast. It removed the top of the acorn and shoved the nut into its mouth, frantically darting, stopping, and then starting back up again, climbing onto the latter half of a pine tree. She stared up blankly at the squirrel, even going so far as to tilt her head to understand how this creature was this happy. She could never be.
Lucifer headed south. A brisk gust of wind came from that direction with a chill that bit through the air. Perhaps the wind had traveled too far; its origins were now lost, leaving no trace of its source. It meandered freely, pushing and pulling with an unpredictable rhythm before eventually veering northward, its path dictated solely by its whims and the spirit of the wind. Beyond the twin massifs, way off in the distance, there was profoundness. The sun leaped over the mountains and posted up on their summits like a trophy of the sky.
Lucifer reached the mark. He looked down and saw an abundance of snow still on the muddied ground. He continued past the mark, where he encountered more and more, far more than what he had seen before. He did not move on as the others were doing. He disregarded his own simple order and ventured out a hundred meters further. Michael and Delilah waited for Lucifer, but he never appeared. In the end, they decided to head south in search of him now. Lucifer had a gut feeling when he saw there was more snow tracking south. That’s where the prince was going to be, like a trail of breadcrumbs. And his gut was right. Jehovah was indeed in the snow, making snow angels.
He lay on his back, exhaling deeply as if to heat up his surroundings. His arms and legs were stretched out, swaying side to side in the snow and leaving trails. As he finished, he got up carefully, trying not to disturb the angel in the snow. He looked down to admire his work, seeming unbothered by the sloppy result. There were hundreds of slush-covered snow angels that nearly faded away, leaving only enough layers of ice to make the angel impressions pressed into their making.
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“What are you doing?” Lucifer said, baffled.
Jehovah never ceases to amaze him.
“What does it look like?” Jehovah said some ways away. His voice echoed into the vast expanse of this morning.
Lucifer's nose was all red and he was breathing heavily. With every breath taken and word spoken, clouds materialized, a sign of warmth as it went cold.
“I know what you’re doing?! Clearly!” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He was still only now waking up. “You scared half of us, half to death.”
“Only half of you huh? There's only three of you.”
“So what? Shut up. I half care.”
“The math still doesn't add up. Anyway, I woke up an hour ago, okay? I didn't want to wait in the cold for you to wake up. What’s wrong with that?
“Nothing. I guess… I thought you didn't get cold?!”
“I don’t.” Jehovah's eyes darted left quickly. Lucifer followed his eyes. “I took the liberty to make a new friend, by the way.”
“What do you mean by that?”
A pure white wolf walked past Lucifer as if he were a passerby.
Lucifer raised a brow and asked, “Who is this?”
Lucifer’s head followed the wild animal.
The wolf snarled and growled at Lucifer.
He took a step back.
The wolf nestled himself at Jehovah’s feet.
“We’re not taking that thing with us, are we?” Lucifer asked, pointing at the wild animal. The beast opened a single eyelid and growled again, foaming at the mouth. “It looks like it has rabies. Why does no one listen to me?”
Jehovah leaned down, and the tail of the wolf wagged as he petted the head and scratched under its chin.
Jehovah said directly and slowly, like speaking to an infant, “Good boy, Mr. Pickles, now tell your hater how you feel.”
Jehovah got behind the head of the wild animal and kissed it. The wolf closed its eyes, licking its nose in contentment. He then patted the head once more and then the animal’s rear end, sending the wolf off.
Lucifer said, “You and animals, I swear.”
“Please stop swearing and cursing. I’m exhausted from hearing it.” Jehovah replied earnestly.
“I just meant, it’s really nice. I guess... you know what? Forget about it.”
"The great Lucille Morningstar is using the word 'cute' to describe something? I never thought I would ever see the day."
"I didn't say 'cute'! Don’t get my words jumbled up! And don’t get used to it either."
"So it was a compliment!" Jehovah smiled. "Thank you, Lucille."
"Shut up. I already regret ever saying anything. From now on, we’re not talking." He mumbled to himself, "Scaring all of us like that."
Michael and Delilah turned a corner where trees on the forest's side obscured their location southwest of their origin, the campsite.
Finding out where Jehovah was and what he was doing, and seeing the snow angels surrounding the company, Delilah said disinterestedly, "Don’t tell me this is what you’ve been doing." She looked at Lucifer and said, “Don’t tell me he was.”
Jehovah interjected and said proudly, “It’s exactly what it looks like!”
The other three turned their heads toward one another and back at Jehovah. “You’re an idiot!” They all said it together.
Jehovah smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry," he said with his usual chuckle. They couldn't be mad at Jehovah's youthfulness. He was the youngest by a few months, exuberating with joy like an innocent child, with an aura that he never let go of.
Lucifer ran over to Jehovah and jumped on him in the snow. They tussled with each other in a friendly manner.
“I’ll kill you!”
Maybe not in the friendliest of ways. Michael grabbed Delilah, and they ran out towards them.
Delilah saw Michael's face and noticed the same happiness in him that she had seen in the squirrel on the tree and in Jehovah as well. It was as if that happiness was being transferred to her.
They all laughed—yes, even Lucifer; times were different then. Even the smallest fragmented memory in the snow should stay frozen because, for us, it was in the snow where they found peace.
In this visage, past, present, and future meet at a focal point. A place in time where everything was fine. There was no purpose, no pose. They were children, teens, playing in the snow. If it is in vain, then let it be. Because there was a place and a time when things were different. Those days are so far removed. When they were only nineteen.