An Iron bench beneath a Willow Tree

It looked like me, sitting on a bench every day at the same hour.

I turned eighteen on a day when the snow refused to fall properly. It hovered in the air like it could not decide whether to become part of the world or return to the clouds. From the window of my hospital room, I watched it drift sideways, thin and tired, like it had already traveled too far to mean anything.

The nurse brought me a cupcake with a single candle. The frosting was blue and too sweet, and when I blew the candle out, the smoke curled upward and vanished before it reached the ceiling. I thought about how strange it was that wishes were supposed to rise when everything else in this place fell.

That afternoon, I found the bench.

It sat just outside Ward C, half-buried in frost, facing a parking lot and three leafless trees. Someone had once painted it green, but winter had stripped it down to a dull, weather-beaten gray. One leg was shorter than the others, so it leaned slightly to the left, like it had grown tired of standing upright.

I did not choose it for any noble reason. I chose it because it was the only place where the wind did not cut straight through my coat.

The cold pressed against my lungs when I sat down. My breath came out in pale clouds, and for a moment I felt like I was becoming part of the weather, something temporary and visible only when the air allowed it.

People passed by without seeing me. Doctors walked fast with their heads bent. Families came and went in clusters, carrying coffee and folded coats and the kind of silence that only hospitals teach. Somewhere behind me, the automatic doors opened and closed with a sigh, as if the building itself were breathing.

I had no notebook that first day. I only had time.

Time stretched wide and thin in front of me, like the parking lot after visiting hours. I did not yet know that I would begin to measure it in seasons.

A bird landed on the vending machine and pecked at its own reflection. I watched it for a long time, wondering if it believed there was another bird trapped inside, or if it was simply offended by its own face.

When my chest began to ache from the cold, I went back inside.

That night, I dreamed of snow that never touched the ground.

The next day, I brought a notebook.

It was yellow, which felt wrong for winter. Yellow belonged to sunlight and lemons and things that did not need blankets. But it was the only one in the gift shop that did not have flowers or inspirational quotes on the cover. I did not want words already written for me.

I sat on the bench again and opened it carefully, like it might be alive.

On the first page, I wrote the date. Underneath it, I wrote a title without thinking too much about it:

Things I Notice From This Bench.

The handwriting looked unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone steadier.

I waited.

The world did not perform for me. It never does. It only continued.

A man in a black coat argued into his phone with a voice so low I could not hear the words, only the weight of them. A nurse dropped her keys and laughed alone. A child pressed his hands to the glass doors and made foggy circles with his breath. The trees stood bare and patient, like they had accepted something I had not yet learned how to.

The cold worked its way into my bones. I wrote anyway.

I did not know why I needed to write it down. Maybe because the moment I noticed something, it felt like it belonged to me. And if it belonged to me, then it could not disappear without leaving a mark.

That was how the bench became mine.

By the end of the week, winter had decided to stay.

Snow gathered in the cracks of the pavement and along the edges of the parking lot like quiet punctuation. The sky became a single unbroken sentence of gray. The trees lost their last stubborn leaves and stood with their branches raised, thin and dark against the pale sky, as if asking a question no one answered.

I came to the bench every afternoon after lunch.

Sometimes my hands shook when I wrote. Sometimes I had to stop and breathe through the dull pain in my ribs. I learned which days my body felt heavier and which days it allowed me to pretend I was only tired.

The hospital staff began to recognize me.

“There’s your spot,” one of the nurses said once, nodding toward the bench through the glass doors.

It felt strange to be known for sitting still.

She came to see me on the first day of real snow.

Her boots were soaked, and her hair was full of white flakes that refused to melt. She brought the cold with her when she sat down, and for a moment we were two small warm things surrounded by winter.

“Happy late birthday,” she said, holding out a scarf she had knitted herself. It was uneven and too long, and one end was thicker than the other.

“It looks like it survived a war,” I told her.

“It survived me,” she replied, smiling in that way she did when she was trying to hide how nervous she felt.

She wrapped it around my neck anyway.

We sat side by side without speaking for a while. The snow fell slowly, as if it were afraid of making noise.

She talked about school, about her bus ride, about a dog she saw tied outside a grocery store that looked smarter than most people she knew. I listened to the rhythm of her voice and tried to memorize it, the way you memorize a song you are afraid will stop playing.

“You’ve been coming out here a lot,” she said eventually, looking at the bench.

“It’s quiet.”

“It’s cold.”

“So is everything else,” I said.

She laughed, but the sound was too quick, like it had been prepared in advance.

I showed her the notebook. She flipped through the pages carefully, as if they were fragile.

“You’re writing about nothing,” she said.

“I’m writing about everything.”

She did not argue.

When she left, she hugged me longer than usual, and I could feel her hands shaking through my coat. She walked away without turning back.

The snow kept falling.

Winter taught me what stillness looked like.

It looked like birds puffed into round shapes on bare branches.
It looked like tire tracks filling slowly with white.
It looked like people walking faster than the cold could follow them.

Sometimes I imagined the bench would remember me if I stopped coming. I imagined the snow would settle into the shape of my body, and someone would look at it and wonder who had been there.

I did not write that thought down.

I was not ready to make it real.

On the last day of January, the wind was so sharp it felt like it could cut paper. I sat anyway. My breath came out in short bursts, and the world seemed smaller, closer, as if winter had pulled everything inward.

A bird landed near my feet. It was thin and gray and brave enough to look directly at me.

We watched each other for a long time.

I thought about how birds did not measure time in birthdays or diagnoses. They measured it in light and hunger and weather. They did not ask how long they had. They only moved when the sky told them to.

The bird flew away.

I stayed.

By February, I began to feel the weight of the year pressing forward.

People talked about spring like it was a promise. The nurses said things like, “You’ll see the flowers soon,” and my girlfriend said, “We’ll come sit here when it’s warm.” Even the trees seemed to be holding something back in their branches, waiting for permission to change.

I wondered if I would change with them.

The notebook grew heavier in my pocket. Not because it had more pages filled, but because it felt like proof of something I did not yet understand.

I was collecting a world I might not finish watching. I did not know how i felt about that.

One afternoon, the bench was wet with melted snow, and I hesitated before sitting. My legs felt weak. My chest burned when I breathed too deeply.

I thought about going back inside.

Instead, I wiped the bench with my sleeve and sat down.

Across the parking lot, a woman held an umbrella against the sun even though there was no rain. It looked foolish and brave at the same time.

I wrote about her.

I wrote about the way the light touched the trees.
I wrote about the sound of the doors opening and closing.
I wrote about how winter did not seem cruel, only honest.

When I closed the notebook, my hands were numb.

But I felt awake.

Winter did not end all at once.

It loosened its grip slowly, like someone who does not want to admit they are leaving.

Snow became slush. The sky learned new colors. The birds returned in louder numbers, arguing over branches like old neighbors.

And I stayed on the bench, watching the world lean toward something warmer.

I did not know yet that spring would bring her laughter back, or that summer would teach her fear, or that autumn would carve lines into her face she did not used to have.

For now, there was only winter and the sound of my pen moving across paper.

And the quiet understanding that the year had begun.

February arrived without ceremony.

It came the way exhaustion does—slowly, without asking permission, and with a kind of dull persistence that made everything feel heavier than it had been before. The snow melted into thin rivers that traced the cracks in the pavement, and the bench grew damp and cold to the touch. I learned to carry an old towel in my bag so I could sit without soaking through my coat.

The sky began to change first. It no longer stayed the same blank gray all day. Sometimes it turned the color of bruised peaches in the evening, or pale blue for a few hours before retreating into cloud. The light lingered longer, as if it were unsure whether to go or stay.

I kept coming to the bench.

There was comfort in repetition. The body might betray me in unpredictable ways, but the bench never did. It waited where it always had, patient and quiet, as if it understood something about endurance.

I started to notice how winter softened near the edges.

Ice melted into mirrors.
Snow became water.
Birds returned in cautious pairs, testing the air with small sharp cries.

The notebook filled more quickly now. I wrote about how the wind sounded different when it passed through branches that were no longer empty. I wrote about the way the vending machine hummed louder when the world was quiet. I wrote about how people seemed to walk slower, like they were tired of rushing toward things they did not fully believe in.

Some days, my chest felt tight enough that every breath was a decision. On those days, the bench felt farther away than usual, as if the parking lot had grown in secret while I slept. I learned to pause halfway, leaning against the wall of the hospital and pretending to look at my phone while waiting for the dizziness to pass.

The world did not know I was practicing how to stay upright.

She came again on a Sunday.

Her scarf was brighter than the sky, and she wore gloves with holes in the fingertips. When she sat down beside me, she bumped her knee against mine and laughed, startled by her own closeness.

“You’re freezing,” she said, touching my hand without asking.

“I’m seasonal,” I replied.

She rolled her eyes and leaned her head against my shoulder anyway.

We watched a family cross the parking lot, the father carrying two coats over one arm, the mother pulling a child along by the hand. The child’s boots left uneven prints in the wet snow.

“They look like they’re escaping,” she said.

“From what?”

“From everything,” she said. Then she smiled, as if embarrassed by the thought.

She talked more than usual that day. About small things. About nothing. About a movie she wanted to see and a test she was worried about and a teacher who smelled like chalk and oranges. Her words fell into the space between us like snowflakes—light, temporary, gone the moment they touched something warm.

I did not tell her that my legs were trembling.

Instead, I told her about the bird that kept landing near my feet, about how I thought it was waiting for crumbs even though I never brought food.

“Maybe it just likes you,” she said.

“That would be unfortunate,” I replied. “I’m a terrible host.”

She smiled, but her eyes stayed on my face longer than usual, as if she were memorizing something she did not want to forget.

When she left, she pressed her forehead to mine for a moment.

“Text me when you’re back inside,” she said.

“I always do.”

“I know,” she said. “Just… do it anyway.”

She walked away with her hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. Looking back at me with a warm smile. “I miss her already” was my first thought.

I stayed until my fingers were numb.

By the end of February, the trees began to look restless.

Tiny buds appeared on their branches, like they were practicing how to be alive again. The birds grew louder and more confident. The parking lot filled with puddles that reflected the sky, and sometimes I felt like I was sitting between two versions of the world—one above me and one beneath my feet. The Ward looked like a grey monolith the trees still spindly reflected a surprisingly beautiful silhouette in the murky puddle water.

I wrote about reflections.

I wrote about how the puddles broke when cars passed through them, just to return back after a moment of rippling chaos, it was like life would always return to the status quo
I wrote about how the sky never seemed to mind being divided.

There were mornings when I woke up already tired, as if sleep had only taught my body how to be heavier. The nurses began to insist that I bring a blanket outside. My breath came in shorter phrases. My heart learned a new rhythm that did not always match the one I wanted.

Still, I went.

The bench had become a kind of confession. I did not speak there. I only watched.

I noticed a man who fed crumbs to pigeons from the same spot every day. I noticed a woman who smoked one cigarette and then cried into her sleeve. I noticed a boy who kicked stones across the pavement and never once looked up at the hospital windows.

I wondered who was watching me.

The first true sign of spring came in the form of a single yellow flower growing near the curb.

It was small and bent toward the road, brave enough to bloom where cars passed and people did not look. I saw it before anyone else did and felt an unreasonable sense of ownership.

When she came that week, I pointed it out to her.

“Look,” I said. “Someone started early.”

She crouched beside it, careful not to touch.

“It looks like it’s not afraid of getting stepped on.”

“Or it doesn’t know yet,” I said.

She stood slowly, brushing dirt from her hands.

“Spring suits you,” she said.

“Why?”

“You look less… winter.”

I did not know what that meant, but I liked the sound of it.

She talked about summer plans as if they were certain. The word summer hung between us like a fragile thing neither of us wanted to drop.

I listened and nodded and imagined myself still sitting on the bench while the trees wore full leaves and the birds argued loudly in the heat.

The thought felt both comforting and dangerous.

One afternoon near the end of winter, I stayed longer than I should have.

The sun slipped behind the building, and the cold returned with a sharpness that felt personal. My hands were stiff when I tried to close the notebook. My chest burned, and my vision blurred at the edges.

For the first time, the bench felt like too much.

I stood slowly, the world tilting around me, and held onto the metal armrest until the shaking stopped. The sky above the parking lot had turned the color of ash. The birds had gone quiet.

Inside, the hospital lights felt too bright.

That night, I wrote less.

I wrote only one paragraph about how the bench had not changed, even though I had.

I did not write about the fear that came with that realization.

Winter ended the way it had begun: without asking.

One morning, the snow was gone. The trees wore pale green like a new language. The air smelled like wet soil and something trying again.

I sat on the bench and felt the sun reach my face for the first time in months. It was warm enough that I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, a bird sat on the back of the bench, close enough that I could see the small movement of its chest as it breathed.

We stayed like that for a long time.

Two quiet things.
Still alive.

In my notebook, I wrote:

Spring has arrived.
And I am still here to see it.

I did not know yet how much that would come to mean.