The lake is frozen blue and motionless, the ice is falling like freezing spit in a castle kingdom snow globe, there's a hurtful silver mist over the wavering and brittle trees and a gray dawn looming over the lush countryside, illuminated sand colored hemorrhaging clouds and a melancholy day tomorrow, a speakless red fox in her quiet and cozy luxury den, the yellow-orange crackle of a marble fireplace, charred oak and a bruised and golden dream here and there, cold wood floors, and a bitter pale silence louder than you can imagine, a small heart beating and not because it wants to, but out of painful habit, and only because it still can.