Falling snow. Steady and soundless, like a clock ticking from within a void. Like running your fingers along the keys of a piano, but never pressing down. Camille likes to do that when his heart feels too hollow for music. He touches the smooth white silence.
            Camille is standing at the edge of an open soccer field. The forest stands heavy and still, full of shadows like muted static. He looks up, eyes closed, and feels the snowflakes melting one by one on his skin. When he opens his eyes, David is there.
            “Remember when you would make snow angels alone in front of your house?” She askes.
            He sits on the snow next to Camille. “—and sometimes we’d make snow angels together, like this.”
            David swings his arms, the tip of his left mitten brushing against Camille’s arm. He stops moving and closes his eyes. They lie in silence for a while, letting the snowflakes melt on their faces and settle over their bodies. David wonders if anybody is watching them, wondering what they’re doing out here. He feels like he’s being buried alive very slowly, and yet it’s strangely pleasant. Peaceful.
            “It used to make me really happy to make snow angels,” Camille says. “I don’t know why.”
            “It makes me happy, too. It’s a happy thing to do, I think,” David muses.
            “All of the things you do are happy things, more or less.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “You’re a happy person.”
            “You think I’m happy all of the time?”
            “No. I don’t know. Maybe it just seems that way to me.”
            “Yeah,” David says, “and that makes sense, you know? Because whenever I’m around you, I am happy. Or at least, happier than when I’m not.”
            “I see,” Camille says.
            Silence. Falling snow. Notes unsung, strings untouched—like the empty space inside a bell. The snowflakes are infinitely numerous and delicate, a swirling curtain of soundless chaos.
Camille leans forward and pulls David into a hug. With his eyes closed, David cannot sense anything else—it’s as though the rest of his body has vanished, washed away by the singular intensity of being held. He imagines snow falling through a void, settling over their snow angels.

Lucie Han is a Half Korean violinist, cartoon enthusiast, and university student interested in the creative arts and mental health care.