That sharp, pure cold. Grey water like a living thing, silk. No sky, no, just no contrasts, she couldn’t stand that, that hurt her eyes. The gathering clouds, getting ready for snow. And the dry snow would come from the skies, swirl like smoke over the roads, and she would remove her clothes and let herself get completely misted.

Over there she had tried to imagine exactly this, the sensation of ice crystals. Her whole body tense, she would close her eyes in order to bring forth the sound of a Nordic stream one spring day when the ice had begun to melt.

She never succeeded. Not even when the fever chills were at their worst and Nathan covered her with clothes, rags, curtains, everything he could find.

She had been freezing with the wrong kind of chill.

She ran forward, forward.

You never saw me like this.

Forward, forward, force the massive body, feet light in jogging shoes. Justine had tried them out at a sports store in Solna, clinically tried them out, with a young man having bright white teeth and slick wavy hair. He had her run on a treadmill and videoed her foot movements. While she was running, she formed her fists tightly, so tightly, afraid to lose her balance, afraid that he would find her ridiculous. An overweight, forty-five-year-old woman, afraid he would see something desperate in her way of pressing her knees together.

He watched her sternly.

“You pronate.”

She looked at him uncertainly.

“Yes, that’s right. But don’t worry about it, lots of people do; almost everyone does actually.”

She got off the treadmill, the hair on her neck somewhat damp. “This means that you run lopsided. You rotate your foot like this, which is why you wear out your soles on one side.” He lifted her old winter boots and showed them to her. “See for yourself.”