Looking out the window in Vienna today, everything bathed in sunshine, winter seems a world away. But only a few days ago we were all reaching for our coats and hats and braving the wind to catch a tram or to hurry into the underground. One of our talented Sunday Writers, Jennifer Cornick has perfectly caught the feel of winter in her creative writing piece, Winter Arrives. As a farewell to winter, we’re proud to share it with you here.
Can you guess what Sunday Writers’ Club creative writing prompt inspired Jennifer’s writing?
Winter Arrives
By Jennifer Cornick
Photo by Marcelo Dias from Pexels
My morose thoughts fester as I observe the world from my window. Not cheerful to begin with they turn bleakly and blackly necrotic. The fall was blustery, with grumpy winds and even grumpier people. The city’s skyline juts raggedly into an oyster grey sky, reminding me of a badly frayed seam across an argyria sufferer’s skin.
The wind changed over the last weeks from merely grumpy to angry and cold. It rushes through the streets, thrashing plastic bags, leaves, and the detritus from late night parties in different parts of the city. It slams into unsuspecting pedestrians, nearly knocking them over with the force of its rage and then turning a cold shoulder.
Winter will be furious this year. Furious and frigid. Bilious and blustery. Winter always brings with it the frost and the fearful. The grey and the gaunt.
The city will descend into mourning. The unrelenting grey of the sky, streets, and buildings slashed through with black, of coats, tights, slacks, and shoes. The sunless city an unrelieved greyscale study.
A single yellow taxi cab flies past my window. The high speed a testament to the late hour, or maybe it is early. It is hard to know when the sun is not there.
Its essence, its yellowness made me happy. One single iconic colour in the landscape. I watched it turn the corner from my perch in the window. I watched the wind caress it with the vibrant orange leaf, one of the last on the ground after the trees shed their vibrant fall colours and the heady verdant greens of summer. I craned around the frame to see more of it before it was lost to me.
I stare down at my hopeful thoughts, spread on the desk in front of me, sketched on paper and softly lit by the lamp behind me. The spring collection. It was filled with the green a bruise turns when it is close to healing. The blue of the veins of my grandmother’s hands. The pink of a fading scar. And grey, opalescent spring time, when the sun starts to pierce the clouds with light and warmth.
I rubbed the soft silk fabric sample pinned to the top of the page. I would have to work on next year’s winter collection soon.
My thoughts of colour and hope quickly dashed with the thought that winter would follow me into spring and frost over my happiness. It always does.
But then there is yellow. Beautiful yellows stashed away in my drawer. Like secrets kept safe. Golden rod, canary, honey, and butter. I sketch a coat with delicate lines and impossible seams. I look forward to seeing one yellow coat amidst the black. One bright point. The woman brave enough to wear it will become their leader; a general in the war waged against dreariness.
The yellow jacket debrided my necrotic thoughts and I smiled.