spring and snow on the way

She came to him in his sleep.
Often.
Her jaw was angular, almost square, and lent itself to the word "handsome," one he used in describing her to his dear friend Mitchell. He expanded, explaining to Mitchell that she was not handsome in any masculine way whatsoever, but that she possessed an athletic, lithe and muscular physique that he found feminine in the extreme. Her lips were full, her eyes almost turquoise in their blueness, her hair copper. He told this all to Mitchell, not risking the labeling applied to him by military psychiatrists. An extraordinary bond existed between the two veterans, one forged under cruel conditions. Who, but them, could understand? The most risky and tenuous secret that he verbalized to Mitchell was the indisputable fact that she had become his advisor. In the depth of night she revealed and he listened. Nothing mundane was ever discussed or suggested, he told Mitchell, nothing so trite as a day-to-day decision. Rather, she gently prodded him, lovingly moved him as she put it, "toward a way to be." It was eminently difficult for him to explain it clearly Mitchell, but Mitchell listened, never judging.
"I've seen crazier shit," Mitchell said.
It was still dark when the two sat down for breakfast inside the small diner. Bacon sizzled. Outside, in large orange letters, read a sign, "HUNTERS WELCOME." Muscular pick-up trucks filled the parking lot, rifles neatly racked in the back windows.
The waitress came to the table and Mitchell saw him go still.
"How'd you sleep?" she said.
Mitchell looked up. She stood tall, smiling calmly, pencil poised above the small pad, square jaw, turquoise eyes, copper hair.
She was not looking at Mitchell at all.