Winter Had No Business

"Yesterday made me think of you. I mean especially. Spring was really threatening. Like it or not, little greeneries of hope were writhing upward in my heart. But today the sky is grey again and the rain icy and I am back with this winter of missing you and knowing the village will not be your next home."

Noah closed the diary and snapped its worn brass button shut. It had almost been a letter. He had almost sent it. Betty's address at university went through his mind like a looped and perpetually scrolling ticker tape on a screen. For that very reason he relegated his outbursts of feeling for her to the diary, so that the glowing characters on the tape would gradually dim and vanish and he might get on with things.

Winter had no business overriding spring. He looked out the window at his flower box with the barely risen crocus tips encased like little jewels in thin ice by the rain.

It was beautiful but ...

Winter had no business.

5 April 2026
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia