With her eyelashes crystalline, she stares across the valley. Back against the course bark of an oak tree. Snowflakes dance downward, accumulating on her auburn hair, obscuring and covering. The cold white layer dampens sound. No plumes of breath emit from her mouth. Still as a statue, the homeless woman succumbs to the bitterness of an Albertan winter. The only witness a foraging crow, it’s ebony plumage in stark contrast to the surrounding whiteness. Her scarf ripples in a sudden breeze. Its tattered edges releasing threads carried to twigs along the river’s foliage to be glimpsed at in the spring with questioning eyes. Her body will lay alone and still until the thaw. An invisible person becomes a shadow in death.
