The Wound

Your scar knows winter before air does. A word drops – and the wound tightens, thread pulled taut beneath skin, before your mind names what it heard. Recognition. Your body remembers the cold before words arrive. Your scar is fluent in it. Pity watches from the ridge, dropping blankets downhill – close enough to seem merciful, far enough to stay dry. But you have already begun the descent. Your boots break crust as the wind sharpens. Ice gathers on your lashes. By the time you reach them, the cold has entered your lungs too.

The Path

You kneel. Your hands hover, useless. You came with nothing that fixes this. Their breath is shallow. Yours slows to meet it. You stand where it hurts to stand. The cold is in you now, the same cold. Their shoulders drop. Yours follow. Their eyes find yours – not asking. You stay until staying stops being a decision. Your scar softens. Warmth made it, you remember. Not cold alone.

The Shadow

Not everyone crosses the snow. Some build walls of distance; others bury themselves in closeness. The Distant Samaritan feels the cold in his own chest. If he steps closer, it will claim him. So he builds a wall of explanation. He kneels at arm's length and narrates their condition back to them, diagnosing from the ridge. His voice is warm, his lungs stay untouched. He leaves them a map to a place he will not go, and the satisfaction of his helpfulness. His lungs stay dry. His hands stay clean. Whoever was freezing feels colder than before. The Smothering Saint kneels before she has even looked. She arrives like avalanche – too fast, too warm – burying them in presence before she has seen who's there. Her hand finds their shoulder. I know exactly how this feels, she says. Before they can finish a sentence, she has finished it for them. Now she is telling her story, and they're the audience now. She leaves certain she offered intimacy. A new frost settles on the one who was freezing: even their suffering can be taken from them.

The Cut