November 19, 1999:

Today was like all the rest. I got up, fixed the blinds so I could look down upon Manhattan, made a few pigeon friends, and went to work—my job is three feet from my bed. I think I will call my next novel "The Loveliest Winter." My inspiration to write it is, obviously, my fascination with the dying, cold world outside; more than that, though, how my view of winter differs from most other people’s.

Most people are sad on days like this. I am not. When I look out of my window and see a bitterly cold, overcast day, my soul just flies. For now though, I will not discuss the novel. My ideas for it are yet too unstructured to give anyone sensible ideas of what it is going to be about. As most diaries do, I will, however, discuss my day. It is now 12:48 A.M. on Tuesday night, and I am starting to nod off, even while I am writing. I will, however, try to ward off sleep long enough to get this day’s happenings down.

I made myself breakfast around 9:30 this morning. I had three pieces of buttered toast and a couple fried eggs over-medium. I enjoyed it very much. I ate my breakfast; sipped my coffee; looked out the window from time and time; and for one moment, I was content. I felt like a king. I ended my revelry at about 10 A.M., collected my thoughts, and sat down to write some more before lunch. It was 1:15 when I decided to write no more that day. It was a glorious day, and I felt like I would die if I did not get out and enjoy it. I looked outside again and saw that my cloudy day was still sparkling. A smile came on my face. I grabbed my brown trench coat, ran downstairs, and wondered into my world.

After I had walked about a block, with my crisp vision, I looked up at the frozen clouds and noticed two flakes drifting down hand-in-hand through the heavy laden air. Way up in the sky still, they looked almost like two dark shadows being cast on the clouds. As they came closer, though, I noticed they were indeed white. I continued to look up and there appeared three, four, ten, a million flakes tumbling down end-over-end, each having its own landing pad on the sidewalk and cars below. How exciting the life of a snowflake must be? I spun around on the sidewalk with arms outstretched like a scarecrow, and for a few minutes, I
thought I heard them “weeing!” and “yaying!” as they fell.

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There’s something about a day like this that I can’t quite grasp.There’s something that makes all the car horns, sirens, blinking lights, and people talking around me stop in one still moment. I looked around me and
the cars seemed to be moving in slow motion. The people, not at all a part of me, talk on and on, with their mouths moving but yet, no sound noticeable to my ear. As I look around this foreign place, all the people and things therein are unconcerned about the frozen wind and clouds singing to them.Though I couldn’t hear the people in this moment and had no desire to, they were talking about some superficial thing, I’m sure. I know what they were talking about.

The women were complaining about their shoes not matching their blouse just right. The men talked, on their way back to work from their lunch breaks, about who won the game yesterday or who they screwed last night. It’s all the same. So, I took my five minutes rest, and suddenly, all the sound came back
to me. A grimace came on my face. I think to myself, “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”

“Hey!,” I heard someone scream.

I turn around wondering where the voice is coming from. I look across the street and there she is. I saw my friend waving her arms at me and motioning me to come over. It’s strange how someone looks different from far away than from up close. Most people’s basic figure and complexion are the only features discernable from far away. Because of this, a person sometimes sees an unrealistic picture of how someone looks. With this girl, it would make no difference. She’s beautiful from far or near. From afar, though, she is an absolute picture of radiance.

To describe my friend as an angel ismaybe a bit trite, but in my eyes, she is as close to an angel as anyone on this planet willever be. There she was. She had a black trench coat on and had her hands in her pockets as she watched me start to come over. Her hair was auburn, her eyes were blue, and her skin was pale without a blemish anywhere on her face. I loved the contrast of the black coatwith her graceful countenance, white and glowing.

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She must have just gotten back from her Christmas vacation in Ohio to see her family. It had been a couple years since she had visited them last. I did not think about whether I would come over to talk to her. It was sort of automatic. I ran over to the other side of the street, dodged three taxis, and met my long-lost friend. She held her arms out to me, I slipped in between them, and gave her a huge hug.

After a long talkabout her vacation and how my life was going, we went over to the Acropolis, which was our favorite place to eat, and talked about our “plans.” The lease on her apartment was going to be running out soon and she had taken a sales marketing job in San Francisco.I talked about how I didn’t want anything to change between us. We were just dating, but I told her how I felt like we were drawing closer and closer everyday.

Finally, I told her that I had no specific ties in New York, that I would move with her. Before her, there had been no one else in my life worth talking about. I am a little sad that it took me this long to find the girl of my dreams, but I was nonetheless happy and willing to do whatever I had to in order to make it work. I told her that she was the most important thing in my life. I told her that the money I am making writing is okay (for I am pretty famous in literature circles and make a decent living), but that it can’t even come close to filling the void that would be there if she wasn’t part of my life. She bit her bottom lip at this.

With even that slight gesture of uncertainty, my heart sunk and shattered into a million pieces before she even said anything. She told me in a voice between a whisper and normal volume, “There’s something I have to tell you, sweetie.”

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“What’s that?,” I said.

The dialogue from thereon is not worth mentioning. She told me how her friend from her hometown from college called her a few days ago. They had never lost contact and apparently have been talking long distance since she left for New York. He asked her if she would go somewhere with him and talk. She said “yes,” of course, and they went to a nice restaurant to have dinner. She said that they talked about their lives andcaught up on old times when suddenly, he pulls out a black, velvety-looking box. He opened the box and inside was a diamond ring shining like the sun. She then related to me how he got down on his knees right in front of her with his huge shoulders almost making him eye-level with her. He told her how he still loved her and had never wanted anyone else.

And in one moment that event single-handedly, without my even being aware, destroyed every hope I had of finding a little drop of sunshine from this girl. He said that he had just taken a job in S an Francisco and was going to move out there. She said she looked around and got a job out there too. It was a similar job to the one she had in New York. After she told me her story, I was still sitting there in front of her taking it all in. I felt like a criminal strung up on a metal rod high on a mountain in a lightning storm. Every word spoken after she told me that she said “yes” to his proposal just hurt me more.

I couldn’t bear it. I quickly scurried out the door. First though, I took one last look at my angel. (I could care less anymore if my describing her as an “angel” is trite.) Just sitting there with a half-apologetic smile on
her face, she said, “I’m so sorry.” I went back to my apartment in blindness and disparagement. Now my
wonderful day of playing in the snow-covered world had swallowed me up.

Sometimes I feel like I may never go outside again. I look around in my head at the world of people. None of them can even begin to understand. I know I will dream of a blue sky tonight, of a silver ocean which sparkles inside. I will dream of a big cloud which rains over everyone of us when no ones around. I will dream of one raindrop tonight. She will be born to this cruel world all alone, and she will leave this cruel world going home; but for the time in between, I will dream that she is looking for someone like me. We will both go falling through the wind-swept air, end-over-end.

We will go tumbling down holding hands, as we rush on and on into the cool autumn current to our final landing pad. Then I will wake up. I can’t write about this anymore. I have already relived the event several times tonight in my mind. I have been strung up on that metal pole many times already tonight without even leaving my room. I just need to go to sleep. Maybe then I can take my dreams and burn every last one of them.

After all, what will they ever amount to? I have nothing left; I gave her
my best. My dreams will only give me more and more days like all the rest.

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