Ice Lashes

Day 138: Returning to work today after a protracted "snow absence" was like walking into a faerieland. At the end of January bare ground lay all around the Longmire Administration Building, but today it was mounded with white, a large hummock the only indicator of a picnic table in the middle of the back lawn. The roof of every building was piled with snow, trees shedding gobbets of slush which landed with dull thumps like muffled drumbeats as I walked around the housing area. And oh, the icicles! Fringes of ice-lashes fluttered over the blank eyes of windows, curling under as the weight of snow pushed them beyond the eaves, dangerous and beautiful, fragile and sharp as knives. The wise walker steers well away from trees and overhangs when ice prevails. I kept to the middle of the road to do my sightseeing.