Millions of snowflakes, fine and delicate, drifted quietly before settling on the cement pavements and bitumen of the street. Each one, minute as they were, glistened softly in the morning light just barely penetrating the clouds. A thick layer of snow had fallen overnight, rendering the road entirely inaccessible.
Each snowflake that fell captured the rays of the sun as it periodically span during its descent. A dance of sheen and shadows played out to an audience far too large and disinterested to notice. Each arm of the flakes, slender and outstretched captured the rays uniquely; a lost spectacle.
The street itself was lined with hotels and restaurants, made regal and whimsical by the still unmelted snow. The second largest of these hotels was the Waterford. With a well maintained exterior and four faux gold stars boasting its relative success, the hotel reached up to the sky. Much of the appeal came from the wide, well placed windows looking down on the surrounding streets with their charming pastiche of quaint and modern.
Behind one window on the fourth floor, a young man checked his front suit pocket for the engagement ring he was to offer to his fiance-to-be. The horror he felt in feeling nothing would go unabated until he checked his pants pockets in slightly over forty minutes.
Behind another window, on the sixth floor; a mother, estranged from her children for many years, prepared to visit her son unannounced. She nervously played out their meeting in her head as she stopped briefly to glance at a photo of their family in its infancy.
Three floors up, a newly married couple enjoyed a breakfast of bacon and eggs whilst monitoring the pedestrians from far away. All this was done in the nude.
On the eleventh floor. A young woman searched furiously for her passport so as to leave England in favour of Norway. She could not find it; instead, she exploded.
The window, shattered by the blast, was dispersed into the brisk winter air. Thousands of shards of glass span freely and exquisitely. The flames that consumed the remainder of the hotel room were captured by the glass each time the shards turned to face the destruction. In that instance, the shards, brilliantly lit with flickering exhibitions of red and orange; fell gracefully and even slowly from the eleventh floor. Interspersed, the snowflakes continued to cascade, still dancing to the light.
In seconds that could almost have lingered for hours, the shards had buried themselves in the snow.
