Snowdrop
Zain Lahori
To the stranger who kept me in the library.
The landscape was indifferent, barren, and without memory. The wind howled, not in grief, but in habit. Everything was white, until it was black. The sun was a distant impossibility, something that belonged to another world. Here, night and the horizon were the same. The frozen lake met the shore, but the difference no longer mattered.
I stood there, shivering, covered in mud, snow, and slush. The wind pushed against me, violent, unthinking. It did not care. It only reminded me that I was separate from everything else. Above me, the moon hung behind a veil of grey, a prisoner of the sky. There were no stars. Only absence.
The stillness of the moment made it feel as if nothing would ever happen again, as if winter had settled in for eternity.
Warmth belonged to another time. There was only the present. The now. And even that was slipping away. Between the then and the now, my choices, my ethics, my deepest convictions, everything I had ever believed, stood meaningless before this vast nothingness.
As the frozen lake met the shore beneath the starless sky, so did my meaning confront myself. And like everything else, it dissolved.
There was a subtle shift in the sky, an imperceptible alteration that unfolded not in grandeur but in quiet resignation to its own nature. The air, no longer still, moved in faint currents, neither tender nor malicious, but with the indifferent persistence of time itself. It brushed against me, neither a comfort nor a disturbance, but something to be borne, like the weight of a half-forgotten memory that surfaces without invitation.
And then, without ceremony, the sun after an absence that seemed to have stretched beyond measure returned, casting its pale light over the thawing ground, as though it had always been there, hidden beneath the very fabric of the cold. The snow, once so firm, so absolute in its reign, began its retreat not in defeat, but simply because it had no power to remain against forces greater than its own. Water flowed through the streets now, moving in slow, irregular patterns, its course shaped not by intention, but by chance, collecting in the gutters, where it paused and lingered, as if uncertain of its own direction. The grass began to emerge, indifferent to its own return, as though it had never fully left, only rested beneath the earth, its reappearance no more a miracle than the memory of a forgotten face.
I stood there, not merely watching, but absorbed in the strange sensation of something stirring within me, something neither joyous nor relieving, but an awareness, fleeting, elusive of the moment unfolding without purpose, as though it were slipping through the grasp of meaning itself. The world, in all its absurdity, had allowed for beauty, but it had not offered it as a gift. No, it had simply allowed it to exist, as it did all things, and had asked nothing in return.
And so, in the silence of that moment, I smirked, an empty gesture, more a reflex than a true expression, a faint movement of my lips that carried no sound, as though to laugh at the idea of happiness, not as something to be attained, but as a thought, an idea that could be held only for the briefest of moments before it slipped into the shadows again, like so many others.
And then, just as the first snowdrops dared to bloom, fragile and defiant, on the first day of spring, I saw her. Her eyes, reflecting the pale light of the new season, seemed to hold something just beyond reach, an idea, a potential that threatened to escape even the limits of my perception. I was immediately drawn to her, not by any conscious desire, but by the presence of something intangible that seemed to promise meaning, a meaning I knew would elude me the moment I tried to grasp it. It is a curious habit of mine to transform the passing into the significant, to ascribe weight to a moment that might otherwise pass unnoticed, to breathe meaning into a chance encounter. To be awestruck, to find beauty in the most transient of things, this is the way I cope with the chaos of existence, the way I impose order on a world that offers none. It is a small intoxication, a brief respite from the void.
The library, a space where the air itself seemed saturated with the weight of stories and nothingness, became the setting of my unraveling. No Exit, Sartre’s harrowing depiction of hell, was lost to me, but I wasn’t truly searching for it. No, it was the act of searching that consumed me, a frantic, endless grasping for something to cling to in a world that offered no answers. I wandered, and then there she was, standing behind the desk.
At first, it wasn’t that I saw her it was that she was suddenly there, a presence. She fumbled, searching for the book, and in that fumbling, I saw something of myself: disoriented, lost, grasping.
But the absurdity of it wasn’t enough. I needed more. I asked her to guide me, needed her to guide me. It wasn’t just the book I was after, it was her, the idea of her. She was from Karachi. The recognition was instantaneous, like I’d uncovered some great secret of the universe, even though it was nothing more than a geographical detail. Her smile, amused but fleeting, twisted something inside me. The way she reached for the book, her fingers brushing the shelf, the way she handed it to me, it wasn’t real, yet it was everything. I assigned meaning to it, to her. In that moment, she was no longer a stranger, no longer just a librarian. She was something I had created. Something I had chosen to matter.
I saw her again the following week, walking through the library, her uniform a reflection of everything expected. But then our eyes met, and time, that indifferent monster, seemed to pause. “Hello,” I said. “How are you?” I wasn’t asking for the sake of civility. I wasn’t asking because I cared no, I was asking because the question itself had become the only thing that mattered in that second.
The only thing in a world that couldn’t be bothered to care. She smiled, nodded. Her beauty consumed me.
Then two weeks passed, and in those weeks, I had become a different person, crippled, literally. My foot in a cast, I limped into the library, and I saw her again. She was the first one to notice me, the first one to see that I was broken. She mouthed, “What happened?” and in that simple gesture, everything about this absurd encounter, her, me, this moment seemed to crystallize into meaning. I walked toward her, explained the accident, but I was already aware: it wasn’t the accident that mattered. It was the fact that she had noticed. It was the fact that she had cared, if only for a moment. That was the meaning I clung to, the meaning I built around her.
After that, I returned. I made it a habit, a need. I didn’t go to the library for books anymore; I went for her. Each time I spoke to her, each time I asked how her day was, each time I gave her a compliment, it wasn’t just a conversation, it was an act of creation. Every word was like a stitch in the fabric of a world I was desperately trying to force into existence. She checked out my books, not because she had to, but because I needed it to matter. I needed it to be a gesture of meaning, of purpose, of something. And she recognized me, just as I had recognized her. She was no longer just a librarian to me; she had become the embodiment of everything I longed to create. And in creating her, I created myself.
And so, I understood, though with a clarity that had the taste of resignation, that infatuation is not a true connection to another, but a projection of my own desires, my own longing for meaning, onto the image of another. It is an act of self-deception, a means of fabricating purpose in a world where none exists.
She, with her tired, confused smile, became the vessel for my projections, the reflection of my own need to believe that meaning could be found in the passing, in the transient. And in her smile, I saw only what I had imagined, only what I wished to see. The illusion she offered was a sedative, a temporary balm for the ache of existence, a momentary escape from the nothingness that lay beyond.
But there it was, the demand for meaning, the weight of beauty pressing itself upon me, forcing recognition. To behold, to surrender, to make sacred what was merely given. I felt myself unraveling, drawn into the quiet violence of admiration. This was annihilation, the sweet, willing destruction of self before something that threatened to become everything. For a man without meaning, beauty is a trap, a deceitful God sculpted from his own longing. We are creatures of hunger, desperate to believe in a world where things arrange themselves into significance, where each glance, each breath, each moment carries the promise of revelation.
But beauty is not revelation. It is a mirror, reflecting nothing but our own thirst back at us. And yet, I let myself be ensnared.
Her presence was an assertion, not of herself, but of what I wanted her to be. She existed beyond me, unknowable, untouched by the meaning I tried to impose upon her. And still, I reached. Not for her, but for the illusion she had become, the fragile, intoxicating lie that something, anything, could make sense.
I had assigned her eyes a significance they did not possess. It was not their greenness that mattered, color was irrelevant. They existed, and that should have been enough. Yet I found myself believing they held something beyond mere sight, as if the world they saw was different from the one I inhabited. She seemed aware of this power, wearing it not with arrogance but with the resignation of someone who had long stopped questioning why others looked at her the way they did. I caught myself thinking that perhaps everything she looked at became beautiful.
Her scarf was a fact, as undeniable as the wind or the passing of time. It did not ask for interpretation, yet I gave it one. It became a symbol, a declaration of morality, a silent code carried on her shoulders. I thought it was beautiful. But I knew nothing of her except her name. The librarian I had tried to speak to, the one who had waved at me a few times, a passing familiarity, a distant recognition.
We belonged to the same imagined community, bound not by shared experience but by the illusion of it. It was a desperate thing, this attempt to craft meaning out of her, out of every interaction, to mold the trivial into something necessary. And yet, it felt meaningful.
Does she exist like this in anyone else’s mind? She should. She deserves to. She could be the source of all meaning. She could be divine. True.
The premise of truth being beautiful is the conviction that dominates the condition of a man in love. But reality looms and haunts, one of the ugly truths.
I fear the inevitable anguish that follows love. Yet, must I not succumb to it, be engulfed by it? I must.
The illusion of love and hope infects through the allure of beauty and desire. When these forces merge, they create a corruption that annihilates doubt.
Suddenly, everything appears beautiful, everything carries meaning. The myths of destiny, purpose, and even happiness materialize.
What sight is more corrupt than a man ensnared by this illusion?
Driven by a desire to immortalize these precious moments of bliss, I believed I could grasp the realm of purpose, of existence. With hands outstretched, I clutched, collected, hoarded. In my excesses, I strived to capture this love in the brightest colors, to trap it, to cage it, to consume it at will.
I yearn to make it last. To me, it is the essence of purpose, the divine spark of existence.
With a quiet determination that felt both noble and ridiculous, I approached her, the woman who had, without her knowledge, become the axis of my thoughts. She was not merely a person to me but an entire world I had constructed, a reflection of my own longing, my need to believe in something more than this indifferent reality. And yet, as I neared her, I carried with me the unbearable risk: that all the meaning I had so carefully woven around her might shatter in an instant.
She sat behind the desk, absorbed in her own existence, distant, untouched by the weight she carried in my mind. There was no expectation in her expression, no recognition of the significance I had ascribed to this moment. Her fingers, adorned with fading mehndi, were lightly pressed together, a casual gesture that seemed almost contemplative. A strand of hair had slipped from beneath her scarf, resting against her cheek with an effortless grace that made it seem as though even time itself had paused for her.
I had imagined this conversation a hundred times, each variation different, yet always ending with some quiet revelation, some moment where she, too, saw what I saw. But now, standing before her, all those rehearsals collapsed under the weight of the real.
I forced myself to speak.
“This is my last day here,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I’d hate for this to be the last time I see you.”
She hesitated, not in the way I had hoped, not in the way that suggested she had been waiting for these words. Just a small, passing hesitation, as if I had disrupted the monotony of her day in a way that required mild curiosity.
“Why?” she asked.
I hesitated now, but only for a second. “I just thought there was something special about you.”
She studied me then, fully, as if for the first time. And for that fleeting instant, I allowed myself to believe that she understood, that she saw, that my presence in her life had been something more than background noise. But the moment was brief. Without drama, without hesitation, she removed a ring from her finger and set it on the desk, a simple gold band, unassuming, its small diamond catching the light.
“I’m engaged,” she said. Her voice was calm, without cruelty, without tenderness. Just a fact, as certain as death. “It was nice seeing you.”
And that was it.
I nodded. What else was there to do? I turned and walked away, my presence heavy, my steps dragging under the weight of something unspeakable. A lump tightened in my throat, but there was no release, only the dull certainty that everything had collapsed. Meaning, for a moment glimpsed, had receded again into the void.
Then, the sky broke open.
The freezing rain did not fall; it struck. It came down in sheets, in sharp, slanting waves that clawed at the earth with desperate force. Each drop was a wound against the skin, a reminder that winter had not yet surrendered. The world had become a blur of white and grey, caught between seasons, caught between states neither snow nor rain, neither past nor future. The wind howled, violent and unfeeling, sweeping away all that was delicate, all that dared to linger.
Only yesterday, the snowdrops had bloomed, small, fragile declarations against the retreating cold. They had risen in defiance, standing against the inevitable with no promise of permanence. Now they lay flattened beneath the storm, crushed into the frozen earth, their brief rebellion erased. What had they bloomed for? Had they known how quickly they would be undone? Perhaps they had, and perhaps it had never mattered.
I walked on, and with every step, she faded. What I had was no more, but it had once been, like the snowdrops, it had broken through the cold, stood against the inevitable, and for a moment, it had been beautiful. It had meant something, if only because it had existed. And yet, like them, it had passed.
Then it becomes clear. The briefest love is the most profound, for it is real, real like the moment of happiness, destined to come but even more destined to pass, leaving behind the void of doubt. Who is a better skeptic than one perpetually heartbroken? In the face of love and other afflictions, skepticism is the ultimate remedy.
Love then! But briefly! This is essential for the heroic tragic soul. Allow the illusion to consume you briefly, so when you gaze outward, you catch a glimpse of the world’s beauty before it dissolves into the oblivion of dark despair.
What is love if not existential malice? The drug that elevates you to the summit of euphoria only to cast you down into the gorges of despair? Love is the foundation of philosophy.
Zain Lahori
Zain Lahori is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan.