Winter Chill

It's so cold you can hear it.

When it snows, the world becomes silent. The sounds of the city are dampened, cars far away, even the TV seems strangely muted when faced with the prospect of being snowed in.

But today, it's too cold for silence. The temperature is nearing zero, and the windchill is close to 20 degrees colder. It's not the wind I hear, though the intermittent laments of the Arctic front does numb the hearing. But the world sounds heavy, the echos of the snowfall, the echos of the pure cold, resound in my head. A deafening nothing, a hum inside a kettle drum, rattling around and screaming and throwing a winter fit in the heart of Wyoming. White noise like the white plains and white mountains.

I was not the only one affected. These horses, too, heard the resounding din, and began to kick up their feet in a celebration of frolic-worthy cold and play in the dripping powder.