Last month, I wrote a short story for a contest centered around winter. I decided to write The Snow Is Falling, a backstory featuring Victor Hunt, his mother, and winter. Enjoy.

Word Count: 1k

Content Warnings: Sickness, death, mentions of abuse

Note: Victor is called Lukas here–I can’t reveal his real name yet, for the love of spoilers.

It is winter, and the snow is falling.

The world is shimmering and bright, and the snow is falling! If I don’t hurry, to catch the flakes on my tongue, to make snowmen and snow angels and taste the sky against my lips it’ll disappear before I can blink.

“Hold on, Lukas.” My mother laughs, a glittering sound, as she wraps a cozy scarf around my neck, tucking it into my coat. I fidget, staring at her, cheeks bright with excitement.

“It’ll melt!”

“No, my sweet, it won’t.” She says softly, kissing my cheek. “I promise. Wait for me.”

I huff, waddling over to the door, pressing my face to the glass screen. 

Everything happened so fast. One night, it was dry and grey and boring, just as cold outside as the walls were inside. My mother was warm and covered in orange, and my father was grey and dreary, like always. And I went to sleep and she tucked me in, and kissed my cheek and sang me to sleep.

And then I woke up, and the snow was falling! In thick coats, blankets over the rooftops and the streets. The world glittered white and pale blue, bright and happy, and my mother was waiting downstairs, bathed in soft blue and gentle smiles.

She steps forward now, wrapped in her thick white coat, all gentle smiles and her soft sweeps of brown hair and the fluffy white puffs at the top of her hat. “Ready?”

“Yes!” I cheer, shoving the door open, tumbling out into the fresh cold. A rush of cold air, not stale like inside. The snow’s piled up to my knees already, but I forge forward anyways, to the whistle of the winds and the chimes of my mother’s laughter behind me, and the thudding of adventure and happiness in my heart.

It is winter, and the snow is falling.

It comes as it always does, in a wonder of soft white. A blanket of peace over the world.

I knew it would happen this year, as I went to sleep, closing my eyes as my mother tucked me in, swept a kiss to my cheek, then went to her room. I pretend not to hear her crying in the night. I pretend to be all smiles and excitement when I crawl out of bed in the morning, and run downstairs to her red-rimmed eyes and soft, gentle smiles. I hug her as tight as she can. A decade’s worth of apologies shudder through my hugs, a decade’s worth of being sorry I didn’t realize. Sorry I didn’t protect her. 

Now I bundle my own scarf, and pretend to be annoyed when she fusses with me. Just to see that smile on her face again. I jump up to pat the puff on her winter hat, and drag her outside into the snow before my father can wake up, before he can take our winter days and leave more oranges and blues along her arms.

She trudges out into the snow with me, as the cold settles below our knees. I swing at her arm, chattering about the colors and the snow dancing through the sky, just to see the sparks dancing through her eyes again. Please—

I tug on her arm, and tilt my head to the sky, and stick out my tongue. She does the same.

We laugh, and taste the sky, and breathe in peace.

It’s winter, and the snow is falling.

The night was too long. I stared up at my ceiling, listening as the weathermen set off the snow machines. Listening as my mother cried. Listening as my mother coughed, long and long and long and hard.

Listening as my childhood slipped between my fingers.

This is too early, right?

I roll out of bed, dragging a hand through my hair, pulling on a soft blue shirt and hurrying to her room. She’s laying in the bed, covered in thick white blankets, shimmering with red fever and nothing but soft breaths, her chest rising and falling, falling. I sit at her side, cupping her hand in mine. 

Lilies sit at her bedside. Greying and dry. The petals are falling, in a littered pile at the foot of the soft blue vase.

She sucks in a weary, cold breath. I hold her hand as tight as I can, a decade’s worth of sorrows in my mind.

Outside, the snow is falling in thick white drafts, whispering against the windowpanes. I whisper back, to keep my father away, at least for a little while. I whisper back, to give my mother peace. I whisper back, that I miss the taste of the sky.

It is summer, and the snow is falling. This should not be happening.

Someone messed up.

It is summer, and snow is falling. My heart aches like frozen hands near a fire, as I step outside, raising my face to the sky. 

Cold snowflakes are falling against my cheeks. Clinging there for a millisecond, then dissolving into tears, slipping down my face.

Snow is falling, and my mother is not here.

My father is here, but my mother is not, and everything inside me screams that is wrong.

There’s nothing I can do about it, and that in itself is wrong.

It is summer, and I fall to my knees. No soft blankets are there to catch me. Only grey concrete, and melting snow, and hot summer air and fluttering wisps of snow.

I sit on my knees, and stare up at this summer sky. 

I wish it was winter. I wish this aching ice in my heart would be melted, by her hugs and her warm orange sweaters and her fluffy white coat and her smiles.

I wish I hadn’t seen her cough. I wish I hadn’t seen her lie there, crying, and whispering about snow. I wish I hadn’t seen her stare out the window, the stars already glimmering in her eyes. I wish I hadn’t helped her outside, to lay in the snow in her thick white coat as she whispered to the wind, and succumbed to the snow, and fell into the peace.

I wish I hadn’t sat there, for hours, waiting for someone to wake her up again.

I wish none of it had ever happened.

But the snow doesn’t listen to my wishes. It only listens to my whispers.

So I sit there on the grey concrete, my cheeks to the sky, and I shut my eyes and taste the sky and whisper for the snow to give me peace too.