Buried under the snow, a hand. It crawled with fingertips as black as the hidden pavement. The man arising. The sun glaring on his home in the snow, turning it back into water. A car and then a crowd pass by and the man sits naked with his hand outstretched. Scars spiral up the muscles of his blue veined forearm--a tale he’d rather not tell and no one asks him anyway. There was a woman once, passing by she dropped a red kopeck in his hand and he thanked her. Such a strange piercing stare in her ice blue eyes bloodshot with last night’s memories still playing like a video tape across her retinas. Was he there? No, he was buried deep where no one could find him, and now his house was gone. He’d make another when the weather turned. Until then, he would sit with his hand outstretched and waiting. Maybe someone would take it.