It is that time of the year again; leaves are red and crisp, the ground toasted but the air spicy with a chill so slight, it smelled of cinnamon and cayenne—a combination so deadly in hot chocolate that it could light, in the coldest of hearts, a single flame. Gentle is the breeze that cleared the roads of maple crisps, sweeping them against the curbs where they sat in a pile of umber, as though burnt from the touch of summer.

A passing black hackney sent these flying in an array and falling like snow, landing on a sidewalk that, in a couple hundred feet, would lead to the entrance of an old apartment building in the middle of East Dulwich. Traditional, but not unkempt. There was a car parked in the middle of the driveway, beside a red motorbike of a shade so electric, it stood out against the grey darkness of its surroundings.

These did not allow for the hackney to pull up directly in front of the apartment building. It stopped some distance before the iron gates and, without a second to waste, popped open a rear door. Out stepped a young man of winter eyes, frosted from a lack of warmth in which he'd attempted to make up for by the layers of clothing he tended to wear on days like these.

He turned to face the mammoth tomb of anxiety that was the grey building, adjusting the umbrella hooked on his forearm and the stunning leather briefcase he held in the same hand. The other had the screen of his phone displaying the given address he'd checked for the third time since the beginning of his ride here.

"Hi. Hello," he called out to a passing stranger who brushed past without a sliver of response, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket as he brisked off. Ah, thought the visitor at once, who hadn't noticed the wireless earphones before calling out. He was plugged in.

He searched the rest of the street for a sign and then, around the building for a name but there was none. The iron gates were unlocked and perfectly welcoming, which also did not necessarily mean it would be perfectly permissible to do so, all whilst being perfectly unsafe for the tenants inside.

From the looks of it, there was no reception area or anything resembling a lobby of sorts, where the guard house or relevant security would be positioned on standby and the visitor, practically made of order and manners, could not bring himself to slip past the open gates. This, too, made it so that he had little to no options to properly confirm his whereabouts.

"Excuse me," he'd chosen to open with, pausing to re-think the tone he was used to speaking in.

The grand decision of his had been to consult a group of children having fun at the playground across the road, presumably after school. Unthinkable for the visitor, really, since he'd only ever studied after class or perhaps dropped by the library or his favourite second-hand bookstore for some quick shopping back in his days of youth and adolescence. There was a time he'd crack eggs or whisk batter with a game controller and be slapped a rating for his virtual culinary skills; a time where he'd race on a sunset beach, collecting mystery boxes with a companion, battling out for that prime spot before the finish line. That was a long time ago.

"Sorry. I don't mean to startle you," he added upon observing the state of their eyes upon turning his way. The disruptor of playtime. "And I know you shouldn't be speaking to strangers, but perhaps your parents might be around somewhere? I'd simply like to know if this is—"

And that was all it really took for the little ones to start scampering off; scattering in different directions and calling out to their mothers as soon as the visitor approached the expanded sandbox that contained the swings and slides. Well then, he waited patiently, I suppose the plan worked.

"Mummy mummy!" "There's a tall man in glasses and and and he's got a black brolly and..." "He's got something like a tie on, dressed like an old man. His hair's all whitish and I've never seen anything like it!"

The escape of the children was made in a grand total of five seconds, leaving the playground quiet as a graveyard save a lone, dark-skinned girl in pigtails. This all did not bode very well for the visitor who had merely attempted this in the gentlest tones of the English language, which somewhat precisely described his predicament. Apparently, two or more years in the field of journalistic criticism was enough to transform even the sweetest of beans. The man had, himself, acknowledged the growing sternness of his features, sharp and slim—almost blade-like under specific choice of lighting, accentuated by the angular nature of the rectangular frames sitting atop the bridge of his nose. Everything about the critic could be crystallized to the tip of a low icicle, honed to the point like the edge of a razor.

The culmination of his features, however sharp, did not reflect in the way he'd attempted to wear the fluff of snow on his head which, regardless of angles and frowns, appeared unfazed in its soft, gentle glory. Whoever styled his hair must have been acutely familiar with the critic's personality and had, as a result, decided upon something that could at the very least prevent him from looking like a living icicle. A marvelous decision.

"You look like Frosty," said the girl on the swings, staring at the man who'd come to a stop just beyond the sand pit. In the distance, he could still hear one or two escapees calling for their mothers. Not the worst of signs, but he was on a lookout just to be sure they weren't wandering off the beaten path.

"The snowman," she continued, after observing no visible response from the stranger, who blinked in return.

"Ah," was all he managed at first. And then, "I see." He glanced back down at the address on the screen of his phone.

"He's very icy. Frosty is, I mean," described the girl as she hopped off her swing and skipped over to the edge of the sandbox, hands behind her back. Her school jumper was a tad oversized and, as a result, covered nearly a third of her grey skirt. "What are you looking at?"

"Well, I um." This hadn't been part of the visitor's well-devised plan of roping adults into the scene. He would have preferred if none of the children had stayed. "You shouldn't be talking to strangers."

"I know," she peered at the screen of his phone. "You're looking for a grown-up. Because grown-ups don't speak to children unless they are one of the bad guys. But you don't look like you want to speak to me. So you're looking for a grown-up."

Silently impressed by the little girl's attempt at logical reasoning, the stranger cleared his throat and tilted the screen of his phone towards her. She had nothing else to say except, "You're very cold."

The initial reaction one would be so naturally inclined to upon hearing these words from a child would be the literal, physical meaning of the word cold. In fact, the stranger had not stopped to consider the possibility of her referring to anything other than the coming of winter or the passing breeze but neither of them had observed some form of indication related to the word. There was no shivering; no chattering of teeth. The girl hadn't even touched his phone to begin with, let alone known the state of his body temperature.

"Do you mean yourself?" He posed instead. Confused despite having been on the receiving end of the term for the past six years. "You shouldn't be playing outside if that is the case. And um. So this address, I assume this is the right...?"

"That's the one," she brandished her index in the direction of the grey apartment building across the street. "You're looking for the fifth floor. Number eight, number nine, number ten. You're looking for number ten." She counted the doors from afar. They were visible despite the distance. "I know number ten. He's quite icy too."

It was in that instant that the visitor considered the prospect of having received entirely wrong information instead of being dropped off on the wrong street without having any other way to confirm this except the vague greyed-out lines on GoogleMaps without corresponding labels. Icy was not the word he'd been looking for. Icy was unimaginable. Icy was... well, it did not ring a bell.

"Is that so. Um," he nodded, turning to leave. "Thank you. For your help, young lady."

"Oh!" She lit up, balancing on her toes. "You're welcome."

The visitor made his way back across the street and, with renewed suspicion and confidence which altogether made him quite confused indeed, slipped past the gap between the iron gates. Moments later, with the intention of reassuring himself by once again glancing at the given address, he caught the reflection of the little girl waving over his shoulder in the screen of his phone.

This small, friendly gesture had the effect of slowing him to a stop, dwelling a minute too long on the normativity of returning her wave in which by the time he'd made the decision to do so, the girl was back at the swings with a couple of other kids who had made their return after the winter man's departure.

The apartment building did not come with the luxury of an elevator. The only way up were the flights of stairs stuck to the side of it, leading to the emergency exits of every floor and the subsequent doors to the three units on each level. It was not relief the visitor felt upon arriving at his desired destination but an extreme exhaustion from scaling five monstrous flights of stairs only to stare, mildly irate, at the doorstep of 05-10.

Reaching for the doorbell led to some more hesitation than before and as though there wasn't already enough of that to go around, the visitor checked the unanswered texts he'd sent, to which none of them, still, had yet to be read.

He made the decision to call the owner of the apartment should he embarrass himself by, perhaps, being at the wrong doorstep, wrong building, wrong street entirely; but the ringing went on and on till the line went dead and to think he hadn't even an option to leave a message!

Again, he dialed. But this time, with the side of his head an inch away from being pressed up against the door for any sign of a buzzing, ringing phone or even a hint of life. There was none.

Taking a step back to observe the numbers on the door, he adjusted the metallic frames on the bridge of his nose and breathed a sigh. The wrong address. It wasn't as though the owner hadn't a track record of issuing wrong addresses without so much as giving them a double, triple check. The time was nearly eleven in the morning. GMT.

Thank goodness he'd done away with the intentions of dropping by two hours earlier at nine for some extra luxurious time they could be spending together. At present, he thought himself wise enough to have decided against it. Again, he called. It was after four times without a response—listening to the dead ringing of an abandoned phone—that he hit the bell without a streak of patience to spare.

He could hear the sound echo in the apartment and the very lingering of it was enough to probe at the anxious nature of reunion. Of time spent apart.

What a dangerous word it was. Short but awfully dull; resembling the nature of a blunt object turned into a weapon of slow, insipid torture—apart. Separate. Distanced. Alone.

The visitor stood outside the door in the stillness of imagined air, a construct of his non-breathing, non-beating state of the thing in his chest. He came to terms with the lack of an answer only after the slightest indication of movement behind the door: a sound.

Some soft padding across the floor.

The very first of logical deductions made by the visitor was that they were footsteps. Belonging to, naturally, the owner of the apartment who was apparently either dressed in padded winter socks or walking around in a pair of furry bedroom slippers. Needless to say, these were very unlikely considering both the personality and physique of the person he was meant to see and yet, after passing moments of waiting for whoever it was behind the front door to answer it, they did not do so.

He called. Again. While doing so, he attempted to make sense of a slightest gap underneath the door of the apartment to no avail. The soft padding sound must have been a part of his imagination, fueled by the nervous air.

The visitor endeavored at sleuthing as a final straw, stepping back and sweeping the surroundings of 05-10 for signs of ownership. Letterboxes; pamphlets; décor. Nothing.

Except, some distance away in the middle of the unit he was standing in front of and the one to his right, sat a potted plant on the bare, empty floor. He recognized—or rather, identified —it at once and found its position mildly amusing until he understood the logic behind it.

There was no light around the immediate space in which he was standing in front of. An unfortunate pillar extended several feet down the hallway, past the front door of the unit that would remain in the darkness of its shadow for most of the day. This was no perfect environment for the growth of a healthy plant, and its owner, apparently unable to house the little beanstalk, had decided to place it in a strategic position for maximum exposure to sunlight.

How uncharacteristically thoughtful and calculative, thought the visitor, renewed confidence waning once more; for the person whom he'd been meaning to see did not strike him as the best caretaker of himself, let alone of plants. He continued to present his phone with glances of disappointment, noting the unread messages and the complete lack of response all whilst reaching, again, for the doorbell, dialing the god-forsaken number that simply would not put him through.

This, quite unfortunately, went on for the next ten minutes.

Him, standing idly out in the middle of the hallway just waiting for something—anything—to happen; to remove him from the dull, insipid cycle that neither induced positive emotions nor produced any form of result. Just, waiting.

But alas, the man sighed. His mood soured at the falling of his shoulders—the sinking of a heart so heavy with ice. After all, he'd told him he was coming.

He turned to leave, acknowledging the importance and value of time. Mere minutes of aimless waiting out in the cold had been enough to lace cold frost over his eyes and it was upon the very thought of giving up that he felt the phone in his hand buzz to life. A text.

Come in

The instinctive response was to frown. Indeed, the recipient had been expecting something from the owner of the apartment he wished to visit—something along the lines of 'yes, that is the correct unit' or 'sorry I was in the shower' or even 'fuck I overslept'—but come in, as though some magical open door would in the very next second appear before his eyes and transport him to his desired destination! It was absurd.

The visitor stopped short of improper language under his breath, channeling thoughts to figuring out what those words might mean and how in the world he was simply to invite himself into a third-generation, digitally-locked door with a mere keypad of jumbled numbers on it when he wasn't even sure if the apartment itself was—well, he would have reason to be since the owner did not appear to correct the repeated snapshots of unit number 05-10, but still, there remained the issue of the passcode which he would have absolutely, positively no means of kno—

He could not be serious.

The sheer audacity; the prime example of a master idiot. These encompassed the very owner of the apartment and his soon-to-be-guest did not waste a second in attributing such well-deserved qualities. He reached for the digital number pad, observing the oddly advanced tech installment that had the numbers shuffling at every tap of his index. There was a sound—a pleasant beep—and then, the heavy clank of metal. The door clicked open.

This was all going so miraculously well for the visitor that he, shell-shocked and mildly perturbed by the smooth-sailing mission, stood before the front door that was now slightly ajar. A double beep from the digital lock returned his attention to devising the next logical course of action: starting with the gap in the door that, upon the slightest weight, widened to reveal a sullen darkness that wasn't quite what one would expect for an hour before midday.

Not quite knowing where to start or what in the world he was doing stepping into an unknown apartment, he entertained the possibility of settling into the role of an unwanted guest. Quite unfortunately, as though on cue, the visitor cum intruder encountered yet another stunning halt in all reasoning upon closing the door behind him and turning to face the rest of the unlit hallway.

"Oh good god."

A life-sized border collie, seated obediently behind the front door just narrowly out of his way, had its round gentle eyes fixed on the guest—tail brushing against the laminate flooring in a pleasant wag. Tongue out.

It took him moments to register the fortune of having missed the dog's paw by mere inches in the darkness, but this had at once prompted the need for vision and lights. The visitor felt for switches, catching a glimpse of white with the help of a single, narrow beam of sunlight filtering past the peephole.

"Well you're... rather..." he could now observe beautiful ebony fur against a chest and snout of ivory. And blue eyes. "Well-behaved...?" Eyes the shade of a winter sky.

It did not bark. Nor make an indication to its owner that a stranger—an intruder, to be exact—had made their way in, stepped past the front door, and broken into the premises; as though the dog had known him all his life.

The gaze of anticipating made for some careful but obligatory acknowledgement in the form of a head pat. He started with a bow of respect, not entirely sure about introductory interactions with non-humans, before reaching out with a lowered hand that was more of an offering than anything else. The border collie sniffed at it. Taking that as an establishment of neutrality, the visitor went for the head pat.

And thus, a truce. Possessing some newfound confidence from a friendly encounter, the man stepped further into the house, down the hallway after leaving his coat and umbrella at the entrance, before stopping by the doorway to the lounge. Wary.

Typically speaking, guests were often restricted to a specific part of the house they were visiting, leaving private spaces like bedrooms and studies untouched out of respect. It explained the unseen barrier between the front section of the apartment and everything beyond the kitchen—a short hallway leading to a flight of spiral stairs and what seemed like a panel of glass spanning the entirety of a high ceiling. That part of the room, he concluded, was much better-lit than the area he was in.

Something else piqued his interest and that was the faint impression of music coming from upstairs, down the end of the hallway that he'd personally deemed off-limits.

"I suppose I am to wait?" He turned to his only other companion in the room, standing idly in the doorway. The dog stared up at him. "I'd alert my owner of a suspicious man if I were you."

The visitor leaned his briefcase against the leg of the nearest armchair, a shade so strikingly vibrant that it assaulted the eyes for the sole purpose of telling the entire world what the color 'blue' looked like. While it could have passed as a statement piece in any other ordinary home and perhaps even gained the approval of interior designers with niche preferences, the man could not bring himself to believe that the chair was purchased with the intention of standing out.

So mismatched and tastelessly furnished was the room that it gave the impression of planned chaos. Three armchairs of clashing styles; a seemingly vintage loveseat of lavender shade adorned by floral vectors; an oddly-shaped coffee table sitting atop a tiny green rug; a laptop that was half-closed, balancing precariously on the edge of a short display cabinet that housed a range of camera equipment; and no TV.

All this chaos, the visitor found it in himself to ignore. After all, there was little one could do about the taste and preferences of other people, let alone their furniture. What he refused to let be, however, was the unfinished bag of chips left open on the coffee table and a black jersey on the floor that looked as though its owner had been aiming for the armrest of the chair beside it but missed and could not be bothered. Not far away were a pair of trackpants.

"I'm surprised you keep him around," he said to the dog, collecting stray pieces of clothing around the room and folding them neatly into squares before dealing with the bag of chips.

The mission called for something proper, or so the man himself had grown to believe necessary in everything that he did. Settling was simply not a solution he thought feasible in the long run, for what the ice should do was to ensure the strength and permanence of its surface. One without holes and cracks.

Taking the bag of chips with him to the kitchen, he commenced a hunt for storage clips. They were, objectively speaking, the best and arguably the only way one should be sealing an unfinished snack. The kitchen (or kitchenette, he should say, considering the cramped space and general unwillingness for the area to expand into the relatively huge living room) was perhaps the cleanest part of the house. The countertop beside the singular fire stove was spick and span. The sink; the hood, the cabinets and the small, makeshift island that could double as a dining table for one—not a single sliver of oil, dirt or water.

As though untouched.

He came across one bowl in the drying rack. One plate; one spoon; one fork. A single ceramic knife of low quality; a microwave; a mini fridge. The few cabinets he searched contained lifetimes supplies of air and quiet stillness. One box of nonflavored cereal, expired. Spam. Also expired. And considering the shelf life of canned food, that itself was a miraculous feat. There was no oven; no dishwasher; no coffee. Only a box of chamomile tea, in bags for convenience.

And certainly no storage clip.

Without many options as alternatives and the seemingly urgent, open bag sitting on the counter as dreadful seconds ticked by, the visitor found himself pinned into settling. A lone rubber band that had somehow found its way deep into the utensil drawer to do. He secured the opening of the chip bag, tidying the folds into a neat little fan before placing it in a corner of the empty pantry.

This all, he'd done with a furry companion tailing him around.

It was upon the completion of the task that the visitor finally felt the weight of it all—of being silent and alone for a remarkable seven years of his life—about to possibly, potentially disappear at the closing of distance. Of having been apart.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, drowning in a winter lake of his own, unable to hear muffled sounds above and having longed—longed for the sound. The sound of company.

How should he look like? What sort of expression, what eyes, what gaze, and where? What words, which first, how to? These were questions, he thought, far harder than any other academic essay, graded test, personal endeavor he'd ever had the capacity of reasoning through; which were a decent range, according to the man's credentials. In the eyes of the grand majority, he was a brilliant young man of stability, talent and achievement. There were others who did not share this opinion. Things of such nature did not faze a logical mind capable of conceiving separate, distinct viewpoints.

His brooding caught the attention of his only companion, gazing up at him with wide frost eyes. Sitting. Waiting.

Needless to say, the visitor did not engage in telepathic conversations with animals, let alone a dog that did not appear to exhibit ordinary displays of aggression towards territorial intruders. "I don't quite know what you mean, looking at me like that." He offered a hand.

The border collie nudged it with the tip of his nose and the moment soon transformed into an odd nostalgia that was the color of fall; the crisp sound of leaves underneath one's feet; the autumn breeze; the creak.

Something about the faint music coming from further, deeper inside the apartment reminded him of an indoor picnic on a boring New Year's Eve. The clink of a bottle of coke against a mug of chamomile tea.

Turning to face the darkness of the hallway and the draw of a promised dance, he went forth in search for a candle to light the way.