I was quickly pass­ing by the old ele­gant build­ings on the Upper West Side   in Man­hat­tan. It was a cold Feb­ru­ary evening and it seemed like the strong wind tried to pre­vent me from walk­ing, breath­ing and even look­ing good. My hat felt down and my hair was a mess; all tan­gled, fly­ing toward some unknown des­ti­na­tion ahead of me. I tried to keep it together and to chase my hat picked up by the waves of cold and unhelp­ful wind. I was almost fly­ing pushed by its strong arms. One moment I was close to catch my dark Chan­nel cre­ation but the wind pulled it up from the wet win­tery ground, twirled it in front of the lit up win­dow and cast it into the darkness.

I started cry­ing. I was dev­as­tated and over­whelmed with the feel­ing of pure mis­ery. Why every­thing I love in my life always goes away?  Am I des­tined to chase some­thing I can­not get? I help­lessly leaned against the wall of some build­ing. It felt like the hard shoul­der of the man who wants to use you: wide, cold and care­less. I was never used by a man in my life, at least I hope I was not, but I heard these sto­ries from Jisel’. And who said that being used by a man is not bet­ter than to be alone?

Lone­li­ness.…. I looked around. The street was empty and the wind came down. It became warmer and the sparkling snow started to fall on my hair cov­er­ing my coat with a sil­ver lace of tiny snowflakes. ‘’ Frozen tears,’’ I thought. You can’t hold them in your hand or they will turn to rain of tears. It is the nature’s way of deal­ing with the pain, to turn its rain into mas­ter­pieces of sil­ver crys­tals with ideal dimensions.

I slowly started walk­ing, with this new feel­ing of calm­ness and antic­i­pa­tion of some­thing good to hap­pen. Sud­denly I turned into cozy, win­ter­less street and real­ized that I’ve got really far from my home. It did not seem to bother me tough; there were times in my life when I was much fur­ther from the place I used to live. So far…

The rare snowflakes turned into the sparkling bliz­zard and I con­tin­ued to walk — smil­ing.
–Excuse me,’ strangely famil­iar cadence of the man’s voice woke me up from my win­ter dream.
– ‘‘Yes?” I turned around.
-” I’ve found this on the street, could it be yours?”
The man in a dark coat handed my run-away fedora. He stepped out from the shadow of the side­walk, and the light from the unfa­mil­iar win­dow lit up his so famil­iar face. I could not believe my eyes. We were stand­ing in front of each other try­ing to com­pre­hend the ever repeat­ing mir­a­cle of coin­ci­dences that bring peo­ple together . Ten years ago, I left Rus­sia for my new life in New York. It was my life out there that I aban­doned, my love.…..our love.

We con­tin­ued to stand in silence, afraid that the shad­ows of the past will take us away from each other. The bliz­zard became stronger and I put my hat on.
-”It’s snow­ing,’ I looked at the empty street lined up with dreamy lamps cast­ing golden lines through the lacy cur­tains of the white snow.
-”Yes, it is Feb­ru­ary.
– Feb­ru­ary 14th.

It is get­ting cooler. The ocean is not as turquoise and inno­cent as it was in the morn­ing. It became indigo, with red and yel­low flick­ers of light that look like some pas­sion­ate artist painted them on the water’s sur­face with thin brush. The hot sum­mer day is slowly turn­ing into serene evening.

There is this strong smell of the sea; warm sum­mer wind tan­gles my hair that flies toward the red set­ting sun. I wear  white dress, knee-high that looks like the white sails from the blue boat anchored at the far horizon.

He is sit­ting on the peach tinted sand eat­ing cher­ries. He likes these red beads of sweet­ness and imme­di­ately stains his hands with sweet bur­gundy juice. He smiles at me, stands up and runs to the blue water, plung­ing his hands into it, watch­ing how the lit­tle waves take the red away. I see him wav­ing at me.  His lean fig­ure of a swim­mer, with broad shoul­ders and long torso looks as though it was carved from dark-golden mar­ble. ‘’ Roman God,’’ I think quickly, and the blaze of warm blood slowly goes up to my head mak­ing me dizzy.

‘‘Let’s go, let’s go!” his voice echoes on the green rocks that sur­round our hid­den lagoon.
I stand up and run to him falling on my way through the dunes, catch­ing the sand in my pock­ets, stand­ing up and run­ning again until I hold his hand, warm and strong, and we both walk along the shore.

Every­thing is so tran­quil and peace­ful. We look at the water that flick­ers with the red­dish flames of the set­ting sun cast­ing the last rays before drown­ing its hot body into to the cool sea. I close my eyes.…. It hurts to look at this pull of hot flames, and I con­tinue to walk with my eyes closed hold­ing his hand. I still feel dizzy, as though I’ve drank two glasses of that deli­cious local wine.
-‘’What is it called?’’
–What are you talk­ing about?’ He looks at me qui­etly.
–The wine we drink at the ‘’Shoress’’. I for­got its name.
– It is called ‘’ The Sun in the flute’’
–The flute….yes, now I remem­ber and the feel­ing of hap­pi­ness fills me, lifts me up, and I feel like I am fly­ing, swim­ming in the ocean of uncon­di­tional love, peace and joy min­gled with the warm, salty air.

”Look,” he wakes me up from my dream. I open my eyes and see that the red sun is gone and enor­mous sil­ver moon is tak­ing over the realm of night. It is majes­tic. It looks like a big royal coin minted from pure sil­ver.
I stealth­ily look at his face. It looks thought­ful and dis­tant. I love him so much. I want to tell him that I am so happy to be with him and that this night and warm wind, and the hot sand together with blue Ocean, and the red dress he bought me yes­ter­day at the local mar­ket mean so much to me…,but I do not say any­thing. I know that he already knows every­thing I want to say. The way he is look­ing at me smil­ing, his face lit up by the moon­light I can feel, that the words will only dis­turb the mag­i­cal con­nec­tion between us.

We walk away from the seashore sur­rounded by Silence.  The moon has headed off from the water and became smaller and even brighter. We can see her ten­der face through the webs of the trees. The stars flit and fall into the crowns of the fruit trees where they prob­a­bly turn into col­or­ful lanterns that twin­kle at the elfish ban­quets that take place after all peo­ple fall asleep. The crick­ets are singing, the wind whis­pers some­thing about eter­nal love and far away we see the warm lights of the town.