The wind shifted suddenly, and the blue patches above had all but disappeared. The great mirror of the lake, reflecting the wind and sky, changed too, its previously glasslike surface broken up into billions of shards of silvery scales moving together like the pliant skin of a huge undulating fish. The fish swam on and on without destination, through an ocean of sky that somehow fallen to earth. A soft click, and then another, almost imperceptible, and yet somehow as fully loud as the sharp crack and rumble of the shifting ice high up on the wall. Snow began to fall into the bowl of ice and water and trees. Each flake fell directly, without pause, to its place of destiny . Click! Each flake fell with a distinct sound that was painted on the white canvas of silence, a silence that was not a mere blankness, but that softly held and assimilated the roar of the descending wind over the wall and the lower growl of the surging creek, which poured over polished round boulders into the silve...
