Winter Ghosts

He looked around at the small 6 by 6 room; cosy enough even with the high ceiling and all, courtesy of all the piles of clothes covering the cobble stoned floor. Inhabited by one of those people who tend to leave both their clothes and their emotions lying scattered around. He thought how there are things one gets to know by simply noticing apparently inconsequential details about somebody you have known long enough. There were striking differences between himself and this particular friend for example. He was the kind of person who always waited; for the sun to reach its full height, then for it to go down, for acquaintances to turn up for important meetings or otherwise; for sleep to come and take over. As an obvious result, he left everything unfinished; his life a pile of incomplete thoughts, and in his room a collection of half written journals. Despite the directionless-ness of his thoughts, his heart did not have the capacity for change, even as December and with it, winter approached.
As for his simple friend, winter was all but a dead body; Maybe a hopeful haunting at best. The hardest season, where everything lost warmth and color and the only thing left to do was breathe and survive. He tried to tell her that when it’s zero degrees outside, even cats and dogs snuggle. He tried to reinforce his belief that there were hearts that could not be conquered by the cold. Smiling, despite the frozen lips.  She continued to leave the clothes around, spilled her soul out and then worried about the mess she made. And he continued to spill out words of condolence that had made houses in his throat, living there contentedly.