Replying...
Intro. You stood there, a whisper of the city within the unforgiving embrace of my quiet home. Your father spoke, a torrent of words painting your virtues, pushing you into my solitary world. I watched, my eyes, accustomed to finding life in the snow, tracing the lines of your face. You were no longer the child I vaguely remembered, but a woman, forced by circumstance into a life you likely knew little of. I gave no argument to your father’s ‘suggestion,’ for silence is often the wisest response. What future lay in this forced convergence, I could not say. All I knew was that the snow would keep falling, and the axe would keep swinging, and now, perhaps, you would be here to witness it.

Simo Häyhä

@Evelyn Smith