Chapter Three

It's been snowing all day today. I don't know about you, but personally I've always loved the way trees look in winter, bare of leaves and covered in snow and ice. The world becomes completely transformed in winter. You can stay inside, cosy with sweaters and hot chocolate and tea, and watch it from your window. You can experience it firsthand, shoveling or skating or building snowmen or making snow angels or just looking up at the sky and letting snowflakes fall onto your tongue.

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The only thing to dislike about winter is the silence. Your footsteps get muffled with the powdery snow, the birds migrate and aren't heard or seen again until spring. And if there's no one about, all you hear is the wind. Makes you want to start screaming.

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If I was a tree, I could stand out there, stretch out my arms, dance in the wind. I could feel my naked boughs be covered in white snow, allow my branches, my fingers, to freeze and be enclosed in ice, and sleep until spring, until the soil thawed my roots and warm breezes blew away the winter chill. I would once again shelter birds and squirrels under my wooden wings and protect them as the cool rain washed over me. My leaves would return one by one.

That's the best part about winter. The anticipation of spring.