The struts of the old range rover creaked while the couple bounced in their seats. They both emitted the slightest gasp when the car started to drift through the snowy field. Turning to one another they laughed and their gaze held for a frozen second. He had the privilege of knowing what was coming and so he was mentally recording her actions. She was so raw, so alive. She was never not absorbing all she could see, smell, taste. hear, feel. He just absorbed her.
The purple light in the sky stretched over the hill in front of them, coloring the snowy bank. For something so natural, it was an artificial and alien light. It bounced off of everything, including the cold car doors as the creaked shut. Their feet adjusted to the crunch of the snow under their feet. This snow was not wet and fleeting. It was like a colony of mischievous snow flakes that had been living their for some time and was now watching them from all angles, the way he watched her.
John reached out with his bare hand and took Alayna by her two pairs of mittens and they walked up the small hill. Everything else was quiet except for the rumble of the turning earth. They made it over to the other side, their cold breath bursting out into the world like dancing bits of soul trying to witness what was happening.
He led her down to the frigid water that reflected the light above like a living mirror. The water slurped over the grey wet rocks, stretching out towards their feet. Each rock's size and shape was like a different face, looking up at them. John playfully imagined a few of them facing the wrong way and desperately asking the other rocks what was happening, hoping their friends would spare no detail.
The two stood their silently listening to the wind and the water and the earth. He trusted the night sky. The blue was a shroud, a lie, it covered what was really there, the stars. The infinite. He wasn't nocturnal or anything, although he might have preferred it. It was just that the light of day always seemed to be something of a spotlight on the physical world which he couldn't help but doubt. He felt too shamed by it to trust it. He felt more honest in the dark.
John didn't believe in religion but he believed in God, maybe even Gods. He knew scientifically what those purple and green lights were, dancing before him. But despite science, he believed that something so beautiful was evidence of something he didn't want to ignore. Watching the purple and green swim in the sky, not only did he liken it to a higher power, he likened it to her green eyes and his ears that were often purple due to bad circulation. In the eyes of a doctor, that is a medical issue requiring remedy. In his eyes that were turned upward, reflecting the purple and green light of god, he found meaning in the parallel of his purple ears and her green eyes and the purple and green light that covered everything he could see.
John looked at Alayna staring at beauty, at herself, at god. She was biting her lower lip and smiling as she did when she tried to hold in her wonder and joy. He loved her contained nature. It granted so much more sincerity to the times when she couldn't contain herself. As his bare hand stroked the tiny box in his pocket, he hoped he would get to bare witness.
