Snowflake

A long time ago when the world was so cold snow fell every day and all the animals had hair so thick they could lose their babies within it's warmth, there lived together in a little snow cave a man and a woman. Having not enough hair themselves, they wore the soft shaggy hides of the animals they ate. But they seemed forever cold, nonetheless.

In fact the only warmth they sometimes felt was when they wrapped themselves in a hide fresh from an animal. And this was so rare to be strangely uncomfortable to them, as a warm bath may be to an ancient mariner.

One night, in a curled up ball of skins, the woman had a strange dream. In this dream, a silver figure who was neither man nor woman explained the universe, it's secrets, mankind and it's meaning. The explanation was whole, no beast, stone, plant or thought not encompassed in it's crystal, simplistic clarity. And the woman, in her sleep, knew it was the truth.

But on waking, all she felt was a sense of loss. The beautiful understanding was just an imprint in her memory's sand, which had been smoothed and washed free by the tides of sleep. No matter how she thought and grasped all she could remember was that had known the truth and it's serene perfection. But the understanding was no more.

The man did not, maybe could not, understand when the woman tried to explain. She eventually stopped trying, hoping that the clarity would visit her again in the next night's sleep.

But she slept fitfully that night and did not dream. And the next, and the next.

She and the man talked less and less, as she mourned for the loss of something he did not understand. She found herself questioning her life and her future; was she really to be there, with her man, cold and killing for their food until the force of the nature finally wore them down and left them breathing shallowly, staring at the other's concerned eyes against a backdrop of endless snow?

She eventually left him and the snow cave to search for something else she didn't understand, elsewhere. He did not try to stop her, perhaps wondering that if he tried, would she never return?

The woman walked the snow plains for many days and nights. She saw two new moons, ringed in their darkness like the sockets of a skull. The snow fell forever. She lost some of her bone-bow's arrows in the half-hit animals who crawled to hiding places to lick their wounds or die, depending on her aim. She thinned, sleeping fitfully and rarely. The snow fell forever, numbing her very thoughts and she forgot shat she had left for.

One night, she woke from a dreamless sleep to a clear sky. No snow fell. No relentless downward drift that buried her tracks and her body and her thoughts.

She thought she may be dead, but then the snow stirred around her and the flakes began to shake like the sand on a resonant stone when the whales sing. Her bow shifted on the surface and sank as if into water. She stood motionless, afraid.

Slowly, magically in the moonlight, first one flake lifted from the powdery surface, and then another and another until the flakes of snow and ice crystals were rising from the ground, upwards into the blank sky like they had no place on the earth and this was how nature forever worked.

The woman laughed in one short burst, which cut into the silent night, and smiled with delight and innocence as she stared at the snow falling upwards. She held out a hand, pulling the fur of her clothing away from it to allow her bare, cold palm and fingers to move through the rising snowflakes.

Where the flakes touched her skin, the woman felt a vague prickling sensation and she laughed once more as she realised the flakes felt warm to her. They gathered on her downward facing palm, some drifting through her fingers.

And then no more snow was rising and the night was still and black once more, the last flakes having disappeared into the heavens. The woman turned her hand once, palm upwards and saw just one snowflake remaining, crystalline and beautiful in the moonlight.

She looked from her palm to the sky and then to the horizon and saw, faint distant in the darkness, another figure with arms outstretched, staring at the sky.

As she started to move towards the figure, she saw it look from the sky, to the horizon, to her and she recognized her man. She felt her heart trip and her smile returned. She ran towards him, and saw he was standing a few strides from their snow cave.

She reached him and stopped as he looked blankly at her. Then he held out his palm and smiled; he was holding an exquisite snowflake in his hand.

She held out her own arm and unclenched her cold fist to reveal her own snowflake. It was identical.

They stared at each other, and then hugged. They were still holding one another when the snowflakes began to fall once more from the inky night sky.

And the snowflakes in their palms melted in the warmth of their love.

I wrote this story in the Lion Journal on a train journey to London on my birthday in 1997. It appears here as it does in the journal - all strange punctuation and relentless desire to begin all sentances with "But" or "And". In the Journal I drew a single snowflake beneath the title. I've not corrected anything, though there wasn't any crossings out or mistakes that I could see, anyway.