Something was wrong, terribly wrong. It was more than just a feeling of wrong. It was almost physical. I had noticed it immediately, as soon as I woke.

I did not wake slowly as I usually do. There was no lingering. It was an immediate transition from sleep to being awake with my eyes open. And they had been greeted with total darkness. More that that, it was a blackness as utterly black as it could be.

We were on a hunting trip in Colorado high up on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs. The Weather Service had warned of a major storm moving in. All camps had abandoned the mountain yesterday and we had agreed to break camp early today. Hopefully before the storm hit.

There were six in our group, four friends of old plus my wife Margo and I. It had not been a successful hunt so far, despite the fact that the deer population had exploded this year. Many deer would starve to death this winter.

Our tent was very small and very low, a Himalaya tent for two. It was very cozy and we never felt cold, no matter how low the temps were outside. In fact we had to sleep in the raw to keep from overheating and sweating.

Margo was now fully awake and I turned to my right for her morning kiss. At once my head hit the tent, it was no more than three inches above our faces. That explained the odd feeling I had had when I woke up. And it explained why it was so much warmer than usual inside. And also why our companions’ voices sounded muffled.

Our friends started digging us out from under the thick blanket of snow and soon I could untie the tent opening. Margo wiggled herself two inches to the right, giving me the additional room for my contortionist’s dressing maneuvers.

We kept a respectful distance between our vehicles as we crawled towards Glenwood Springs. Several times our winches had to help out and it was at one of those stops we finally got our deer. A big, fat buck with a beautiful rack of antlers. I have a photo showing a smiling Margo knelling in the snow, proudly holding up the buck’s head by his antlers.

It had stopped snowing, except for an occasional flake. One laded on our car’s roof as I watched, and a moment later a second joined the first. I looked closer and they really did have a slightly different design. I had heard it said before that no two flakes are alike. But seen from a distance they all had looked the same to me.

I think that is so also with people. Seen in large numbers, like looking from above at the warm of humanity in Times Square at New Year, they are all the same, just citizens. You have to get close to them and really look at them, and suddenly each one is unique.