The day dawns dark and silent. It’s so quiet that I wake up wondering if I’ve lost my hearing in a dream. That’s one of the features of living alone. If something goes wrong, you’re the only one to know about it. Then I peek out of the nearest window and see the cause of the silence. A blanket of whiteness has been spread across the world: it has been snowing all night. Tiny flakes are continuing to drift down. They look so innocent, so tiny and dainty. I always think that snowflakes deserve to make a faint tinkling sound as they descend.

I struggle with opposing urges. One, to remain cozily tucked up in bed. Two, to throw aside the warm embrace of my comforter, brush teeth, make tea, put on three layers of clothes and go to the Gym across the street. Because going to the Gym is something I am paying a subscription for and, therefore, unless I use it, I am Wasting Money. Believe me, if not for the $50 monthly fee I would NEVER crawl out of my warm bed on a snowy morning!

By the time I leave my flat, I am feeling extremely virtuous. Delighted to join the energetic, industrious world I can see from my window. People buzzing about in their cars or trotting by in their windcheaters and bobble-topped woolly hats. The Dunkin Donuts parking lot is full at this hour of the morning, 7.30. Busy mothers with two children strapped into the backseats of their cars are leaping out to grab a cup of steaming coffee before driving to school. Men in dark parkas are carrying those cleverly made takeout trays with cutouts for holding four tall Styrofoam cups securely.

It’s warm inside the building. The moment I step out, however, brrrr! I’m wearing my waterproof ankle boots, and the hood of my fleece-lined jacket is up. When I get to the Gym I’ll remove the outer layers, of course. Barely have I taken three steps from the front stoop when — whoops! There’s a patch of ice hidden under the soft-seeming snow! My right foot skids! It flies out from under me! I am falling! Then I land with a THUMP. And I’m down. Flat on my back.

I sit up, feeling ridiculous but also suddenly mortal and frail. Then I clutch the wrist of my right hand. It’s what I used to break my fall. Now it’s hurting. OMIGOSH, I think, all in capital letters. MY DRAWING HAND! OH EEEK! Oh NONONONO! But: I can wiggle all my fingers. I massage the wrist carefully. Nothing’s broken. Not even fractured, so far as I can tell. It hurts from the solid whack it received, but not with any sharp, unnatural pain.

I return to my warm silent flat, trying to feel lucky that things aren’t much worse. Not succeeding. The balloon of my earlier good intentions is utterly punctured. I look at the snowflakes still falling outside my window with new respect: not all that soft and gentle after all.

( Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life in Elsewhere, US, in this fortnightly series )

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