As Cynthia crushed the fallen leaves under foot, she felt cold air swarm around her; the awkward, shuddering crumple of the leaves transforming into the crisp snap of ice on frozen earth.
And so she, too, froze: the sound passed, but the feeling (the cold, the wind, the satisfaction of this simple pleasure) remained. Her heart grasped it, held and pulled each second to near breaking point, then wound them up and tucked them away, knowing that even these warped and tired moments would be a sanctuary later.

How she missed the cold! Not the cool, but the sort of cold that saw no impediment in walls, clothes, or flesh; the cold that consumed all; that sank into your bones and your breath; that even the brightest sunlight couldn’t touch.

How trapped she felt in this heat! Every day, the mug and the steam pressing against her, physical yet immobile, oppressive and heavy as a corpse. Was it sweat or tears? Almost always both.

She felt its sweaty fingers teasing at her, pulling her from her icy reverie; felt it smirk at her sentimentalism, still frozen in her awkward half-step. The sweat and tears stung her eyes as shame’s hand deftly propelled her forward: each shattering leaf no longer conjuring joy, but grief. She stumbled forward, for the silent safety of the burning concrete, and fell to her knees.

She would die here, she knew: not in a quiet, cool cocoon, but in the scorch and rage and sweat. Her mind and body would wilt and curl, and they would be proven right: she should never have left.

And at this thought, she stopped, and she sat.

How had she ended up here, ruled by shame and truculence, persecuted by nostalgia and sweat? In the cold, she had felt corporal; in this heat, she had become a vapour, shaped and tossed by outside forces. Where had she gone?

She held herself and remembered her shape; she touched her face and remembered the skin beneath the tears and sweat.

She reached into her heart and pulled out the moments it had tucked away and, worn and stretched though they were, she strapped them around herself and defined her own form. The more she pulled, the more generous her heart became: so many moments, of all colours and sizes, stretched and shrunk, faded and vibrant, moulded her, clothed her.

She would die here, she knew; but, perhaps, she could also live.