She moves through the snow like a lone salmon swimming upstream in a river much too wide, trudging along the sidewalk with boots of packed ice to cover her own. Her chubby hands are clenched and skim the powder as she moves, too far from home to know that she’s making circles. The girl is young, not yet old enough to ride a bike or wear pants on Christmas, but she is old enough to know that her home is missing, lost in the expanse of bitter frosting.

At home, one thing her mother loved to do was pinch her nose - she fears that the cold might pinch it off first. Surrounding her is an unfamiliar cold, not backyard-in-December but I've-had-this-popsicle-in-my-mouth-too-long. Here there is no orange flavoring, and the sharp sting of numb familiar from the roof of her mouth extends to her legs and arms. Mittened hands rub together to melt the bits of ice forming between them. Boots walk a little harder in an attempt to shake off the extra weight. Nervous eyes search left and right for any sign of home. Raw lips, chapped by baby teeth and Jack Frost, ring out cries of despair.

Determined, to reach an end, she takes the sidewalk by storm, racing past unsuspecting passersby. Not a single “Where’s your mother?” or “Are you okay?” is heard - she’s just playing tag with some unseen friend, nothing to worry about. She tries to believe it, too - hopes that she’s just playing tag, that base is just around the next corner - and that’s what she tells herself when the wind tags her in the back and knocks her on her face on some secluded lawn.

She squirms and bucks against the slow suffocation, attempting to roll out of the snowbank. Her eyes ignite with tears. The eyelashes - from her grandmother, she is told - are corrupted by the wetness of the snow that consumes her body. Ears on the sidewalk fall deaf to her yowls. She is alone here, with only her thoughts to keep her company as she struggles to wriggle out of winter’s grasp.

A greater force intervenes - she is nudged from her position by an animal, a large dog. For a split second, she hopes the dog is her mother and home is near to her once more. Alas, the dog does nothing but roll her over, and she is prostrate and vulnerable. She is a turtle lying on her shell, a scarecrow in a hurricane, a glass of milk on the edge of the kitchen table. One of her mittens is claimed by the wind, and she is truly endangered - her hand shrivels like popcorn.

Struggling in vain to tuck the hand into her blue sleeve, all-too-mature thoughts cloud her head. What if I never see my family again? she thinks, but not in so many words. The image of her parents sweeping the streets in search, scanning every nook and cranny of the town for her pink nose both comforts and frightens her. She frets for her parents, for her curling hand, for her life. The salt on the snow is in her mouth, in her saliva, and she ponders whether she will melt, too. If she lives in the snow, will she be gone come springtime? Laying tummy-up in the snow keeps her warm as her anxious breathing speeds up. The cold simplifies her and she is the same rosy baby again, bright pink and trusting anyone who may pass.

Other large dogs pass by, as do mothers pushing carriages and fathers holding diaper bags and red snow shovels. Children dash by, too excited by the snow to notice one pink fleck. By now her baby blue coat is a soaked bluish-green, fur collar a matted grey, naked hand a painful red. All people pass by because she does not stand out, just another dropped sweatshirt or misplaced hat. She is alone.

The rosy-cheeked, mitten-handed blue-and-green fleck in the snow closes her eyes and drifts off.

A muffled sound wakes her, sending sparks of circulation down to her curled hand. She is not pink any longer. The cold has faded, and now the air around her smells more like garlic than solitude. Glancing about, she comes to the realization that she is not a fleck in the snow. She is a sparkle of blue on a couch of brown — not drowning in a great white sea any longer, simply floating on a small muddy pond.

The familiar face of her mother appears in the doorway. The girl is not embraced, is not cuddled close and showered with dotes of “We looked everywhere for you!”

She is not handed a warm blanket or smothered by maternal love. In fact, her mother reacts as though her little girl hasn't just been lost for hours.

“Oh, you’re up now, sweetie?”