Snow Girl

Chapter 1 (1)

1.


White land! Cold weather! Gloomy sky! Snow everywhere! White snowflakes whirl around, kissing the ground, with temporary dances engulfed by permanent death.


“Life is like this, with momentary sparks, then buried in deep dark death.” She stretched out her hands, and those snowflakes melt the moment they touch her. “Once you touch me, you stop yourself. Since you stop, you lose yourself. But what can maintain continuous movements without any stop? What can end without any ends? What can last forever without movements? What can last forever without stops?” she murmured in the tender snow.


“See? Vengila. Eky began her weird meditation again.” Edith says to vengila, the oldest, wisest snow woman on this huge land. Edith is pointing at Eky, that snow girl, who sits in the center of the crowds. “It’s her birthday! What is that melancholy face? Why she is not happy? She is the only one who does not enjoy her life in our land. She is really difficult to understand.” Edith curled her lips with expression of dislike.


Vengila went to Eky and asked tenderly, “Eky, it is your birthday today, please take your profound thinking aside for one day, and enjoy your birthday with us. Anyway, we are here to celebrate your birthday as is the tradition in our land.”


She turned back and looked at Vengila curiously, “Vengila, where are we from?”          


Vengila is confused, “what do you mean?”          


The wind is tearing apart the curtain of the snow unrelentingly, taking this way or that, like an encaged animal desiring hotly to get out of desperation.


“I mean I know our ancestors will choose the best day of best snow to make us and then on the coldest day we become molded and go into life. But where does the first snow man and snow woman come from? Who create them? How can we have life? Life is so miraculous! When we have life, we are entities. When we do not have life, we are only snowy dusts. How can the first snow man and snow woman have life?” she asked seriously.


The other snow people laughed, loudly, as if they count on the laughs to drive those thick, dark clouds in the sky away. All of these snow men are not tall, made of snow, living in snow, dying in snow.


“I cannot be tolerant of her strange thoughts. “One snow girl got impatient.


“Well, well.” Vengila smiles and pats Eky on her shoulder to show her to sit down. “It is not weird for her to think that way, but it is really hard for us to think about it. Well, as you know, we are snow people. Although I am the oldest in our land, I truly do not know how our first snow people got life or who made them. I even do not know whether the snow man and woman appear together or respectively. The only story passed from generation to generation is that we snow people have a short life of no more than 10 years. Our life is precious because it is not easy for us to get into life. First, we have to wait for the coldest season in the year, and then we have to make out a snow boy or girl in that season and wait for a month to see if it is cold enough to freeze that snow person into a strong, united person. Only when it is strong enough can it comes into life. But there are always failures, because of the bad weather which is not cold enough, or because we did not make a strong enough snow person. So you see, we are not so many here in this land. When we got failure on creation, we would cry or weep. When we succeeded in creation, we would like to celebrate for days for the new birth. And we know clearly we will disappear one day, I mean we will lose our lives because once we get life, the life entity is consuming our energy and the snow cannot combine so strongly on our bodies and by and by our snow begin to fall down and finally we become a pile of snow on this land covered by heavy snow. When the wind comes, it will take that pile of snow into other places and maybe that is the place we make new snow people. So you see how miraculous it is. Although we disappear here, parts of our bodies will be made with other snow to form a new snow person. Life is death, and death is a start of a new life. That is all I can explain to you, and for the other mysterious constructions and formations of our life, it is really not what I can explain clearly to you and truly nobody knows where do we come from, where are we going. This sounds disappointing, but it is true. Or maybe one day you can offer me perfect answers on these ultimate questions. But now, what we should do is to forget those abstract and obscure questions and give sincere blessings to Eky, our youngest and most intelligent snow girl in our land.” Vengila gives Eky a huge hug which nearly chokes her.


The dark clouds are still flying in the sky, like the avaricious sharks seeking for the prey. The snow on the land flow everywhere, which is like the opaque water. This snow land is where those snow people live, and this snow land is where there is no sunlight, no warmth, no brightness, and all it has is snow.


Snow is the only focus in their life.


These snow people begin to sing and dance, playing with the snowballs. Their white bodies prompt and sunken in the snow land, which makes the snow land looks more like the boiling water with so many bubbles popping out.