Outside, a howling blizzard. A week before, it had been all over the radio and across the news—the biggest snowstorm to have hit the East Coast in forty years. Now, silence; the power was out. The only sound was the deafening line of the wind-borne snow battering the walls of the house that seemed small and flimsy like a gray cardboard box in the storm, a creak here, a mutter there. The overcast skies cast a dusky tone over the room; the thunder rolled menacingly. Roger sat, wrapped up in five layers, huddled in the corner of a room devoid of heat, reading one of his subordinates' evaluations. He gave a thought about the building where he worked, and wondered how badly it would be damaged after he got back. Looking out the window, he could see only a rectangle of white light; the snow was piled up high against the wall.

Roger absentmindedly dated the evaluation report. 12/24. He paused for a moment, and the words “Christmas Eve” hit his brain with a sickening thud. His brother was doing research in Maine and he was living on his own, and no feeling of warmth and tenderness associated with “Christmas Eve,” nor any comforting childhood memory, welled up in his heart. Apathetically Roger thought of his family and how worried he was about them. Christmas Eve... there was something that was supposed to be significant and special about Christmas Eve, but the oppressive weight of the heavy down bundled around his head left him in a stupor. Roger tried hard to remember, and slowly the wispy clouds of his memories started to form into comprehensible thoughts.

It was a few years ago, Christmas Eve the same. Roger was sitting on a stone church pew, much in the same daze. The sanctuary was bathed with gray light shot through by the yellow spots above. The orchestra was playing some mournful symphony, simple yet grand, that etched itself into Roger's memory, reminiscent of his youthful, musical days in the middle school orchestra. This was the funeral of the late Dr. Thomas Daniels. He had been the pastor of that church, a sturdily-built man with a booming, sonorous voice that matched the majestic fullness of the orchestra, complete with the bright emphasis of the trumpet but the wonderful undertones of the bassoon. It had been eleven years since he had seen them man and thought about that voice, but Roger remembered with clarity his eloquent and moving sermons, his engaging Sunday school classes, his deeply personal one on one talks with the man, the bike rides they used to take together. As he recalled these pleasant, vivid experiences, he felt again the impact of Daniels' words that had been silent for years, but there was something more to that man. Tang Soo Do? echoed something at the back of his mind.

Roger was puzzled. Tang Soo Do? What kind of gibberish... As he thought, Roger’s first impression was that his feet were cold, his hands warm. The icy tiled floor was slick with the warm, pulsing rivulets of sweat running down his temples. It was his old martial arts class. His heart beat quickly, his muscles straining and screaming as the instructor yelled out a command for fifty more push-ups. Molten beads of sweat ran into his eyes, fusing with his tears, blurring his vision and tinting it a fiery crimson. Roger’s legs burned as he completed another set of plyometric exercises. The world faded in and out as he jumped, kicked, over and over again. And with the last one, his bare, blackened feet failed to support him, his legs buckled, and his sweating, panting comrades, friends, now his family, caught him. In that last surge of strength, Roger was aware of a grand sense of triumph.

That day long ago, he had had a one on one training session with the instructor. The contrast between the temperament of the instructor during the drills and now was quite profound, as if it were two completely different people. His formerly weighty husky voice thinned out to a light tenor. The instructor's callused hands gently adjusted Roger's legs and arms. He scrutinized Roger's stance and poise, correcting with a lover's passion each fault. His demeanor was one of firm, motivating tenderness. It was this aspect of his instructor that amazed Roger the most, humbled him, drew his respect: he had this peculiar ability to mix love and force into a cocktail that was able bind anyone to him in ferocious loyalty. Failure was not an option here. And so it was for the instructor that Roger came twice a week every week to that the hall of cold tiles below and heated vapor above, that he endured the toil of the drills that he complied like clay to the corrections of the instructor. And it was for that man that Roger studied nights upon nights for the black belt exams, and it was for that man that he, finally tackled the grueling physical exam, and succeeded.

Like the sea breaking down a levee, these thoughts washed over and pummeled Roger as he carried the stone coffin to the cemetery. That man was beneath stone now; his voice would fill earthly halls no longer. In a rush the terrible realization came to him that his all his young life (he was eighteen then) was built on what this man had taught him. Daniels' influence extended to his successes in his studies, in music, in everything. Without him... well, Roger had never thought about it that way. He turned the matter over forcibly calmly, but could draw no other conclusion than that it was all meaningless. As the ceremony concluded, Roger's mind was in turmoil, burning at fever pitch. He felt his mental strength weaken, and he rushed to drive home in dry tears, not knowing what to do next. That problem was left behind as a Hummer running a red light slammed into his car broadside. His little Civic careened across an unfortunate's lawn, who looked on bemused as his hair was ruffled by the passing bulk.

Laying in the hospital bed, thinking about his life hurt. Roger recoiled from any thought of anything associated with Daniels. That name haunted him, caused him pain. And so he resolved that that was a life he had never known. Slowly his broken leg healed, and that traumatic day faded into blessed oblivion. Roger got a job, settled down nearby.

And so that day he sat, doing his evaluation report. So that was it—he was just sitting there, hiding from the dully aching truth. But it was what it was; it was the truth. Then, he had been too young to face it. But time had had eroded its sharpest edges, blanketed the past over with a thin veil of dust. He picked it up, examining it like an old keepsake forgotten for years. Yes, he decided, he would carry it with him. Roger opened up a window, and a fresh breeze blew in—it was the first time he had felt that wonderful touch in weeks. He decided that he would go visit that cemetery. The blizzard had paused, thinning out to a light flurry. Stepping out his window, his feet sank deep into the snow. The cold refreshed him, the snow infused him with a wonderful sense of renewal as he trudged on, leaving deep, shadowy footprints behind.