looked down to his lap, opened the book of stories and began to read. As the turn off to Ingersoll approached, he raised his eyes and saw the exit disappear in a curve towards Highway 19 and become engulfed in the snow that was falling and flying past the bus on the long black road away from her snow-covered car. His eyes focused on the bare rows of Hawthorn branches that lined the 401 and he tried to envision the new spring leaves and their openness compared to the transparent veil of snow and bark. Out her snow-veiled window would be a white sky and a botanical specimen of Pinusniger, growing outside the patio for forty years or more. Not so along the 401 where deciduous flora outnumbered evergreen. Field after field of planted and harvested snow passed before his thoughts. He continued reading. Flash fiction.
Heat bothered him more than cold. The closeness of the air on the bus and the constant hum of the fans blowing the heat around the fifty-two seats while all the passengers were wearing their winter wear, seemed ridiculous. Two hours of sitting on a hot bus dressed for the outside weather that no one would have contact with for at least the length of the trip, was not logical, but what did logic have to do with it? The cold and the snow he didn't mind for as long as he could remember. He had grown up on an island province in the far north east part of Canada where there were four seasons: before winter, winter, after winter, and summer. The bus rumbled on. The pages turned. The snow remained. She thought about cleaning off her car. She thought about a lost love who had cleaned the snow off her car on a regular basis. He didn't remain, just in her veil of memories.
The small rolling hills of southwestern Ontario could
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