and i wonder if i did I love you I said as we stood there waiting for the train and you looked at me and I looked at you and the snow began to fall between the boughs of the trees while we lingered in the light. You were smiling and it was a sad smile but really it was beautiful and I wouldn’t want it to be any different because already snow was falling in enormous flakes onto the steaming streets and melting quickly into little rivers running gently down the faces of the buildings just like ours and then you drew me closer and wrapped your fingers in mine as all around us the bodies were going past like shadows and gathering their coats and their scarves close to their bodies as they were gathering just at the edge of the long platform. Above us the wind was howling, and the dark cars were sliding into the station as the blue light was becoming black and the white spots of snow were gathering in mounds besides the metal tracks, an inch at a time covering everything as slowly, and your cheeks were a little red but so were mine and it was only the cold and you were crying, and I was too, or maybe it was only just the snow melting to rain before it has even reached the earth, because by then we were soaked, I was shivering and you held my hand in yours, and I wondered if you heard me, because the way you looked at me I wasn’t sure, because it is so hard to know what we mean, and I was watching you closely because something was breaking, wasn’t it. For a moment it seemed as though your blue eyes has frozen over and shattered, and I could hardly look, even though you were looking at me and even though I was holding you as I watched the spilling down of the pale sky and listened to the sound of the train dragging itself out from the dark earth and drawing closer, screeching over the snowcovered rails and bearing down into the roaring wind as all around us everything was beginning to stir. I held you a moment more. Then there was the chime, the great clamour of the hour springing out in widening circles over the city and the quiet white trees, and the sound of the rustcolored brakes clinging tightly to the labouring wheels filling the great vault of the tunnel and throwing silent sparks up into the pale sky until the train had run fully to a stop. And then it was over, already the doors were yawning open and from their gangrenous mouths spilled forth the bodies in a great warm wash, twisting against one another into the yellow light of the station, filling it with their loud voices which sounded like the sea. I held you closer and I hoped they wouldn’t take you but we were swept up in the tide so suddenly and at last I felt your lips brush against mine as you whispered something I did not hear and then you were gone, running quickly between the bodies which were bathed in a sickly light just doors were once again closing. Then again here were the chimes, even before I knew it, and that terrible screeching of steel against steel as the train once more began to move, outwards and onwards, into the snow which was coming down harder, and all the while I remembered how you smelled when you pressed your body against mine as we held each other in the light. I remembered and I would not forget, not now and not for a long while, or at least not until the train had vanished into the twisting storm of white snow; and already it had, and I love you I said as the wind roared down the empty tunnel, tossing up around us a storm of dead leaves and torn-up metro tickets as the train slid into the station and it seemed to be painted blue. I looked at it and I looked at you and it was like were the only ones there on that platform, even though it was filled with people, it was like we stood wrapped in the sea, and all around us in the long rush of winter everything was going quickly. Could you hear me over the sound of the storm? I wanted to tell you to wait but the snow was falling and the people were hurrying by as the last chime rang from across the long hall and the lights which ran down the dark vault’s length were beginning to flicker and like the end of the something we looked at one another and you squeezed my hand once and I squeezed yours twice in return and you leaned closer to me and whispered something but it was lost in the rush of the sky and already the doors had thrown themselves open and the bodies were rushing forward towards one another like the crashing of waves on the shore and already before you were gone it was like I was looking at a ghost, something I would remember later, and then you were, you had pulled your hands from mine and disappeared into the rush of the crowd, and I could only hear the echo of your indistinct whisper, and I love you I said and I tried to say everything else too but the wind was howling and you couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t hear you and we could barely see each other between the snow and before we knew it the bells were ringing and bodies were running quickly past one another and already you were disappearing through the crowd while I tried to remember what it was that you had said to me and while I was wondering if you remembered what I had said to you because I can barely recall. But perhaps the details do not matter so much; not now, when everything is already over. And it is easier, isn’t it: not to remember, just to forget, and I love you I said to the wind as it filled the empty station.