A Christmas Snowflake
The snowflake shuddered as it finally felt complete. It could feel itself grow heavy and begin to lose its grip on its friends around him. It knew the time was near, that its end had come. Soon it would slip into the blinding white depths and be lost as it had watched so many of its friends do before. Its friends grabbed at it tighter, but it shook its head and cried out farewell, filled with fear…it let go. Slowly it fell into the folds of white beneath it. Then faster…and faster… it would have screamed in sheer terror as it hurtled to its unknown fate.
Blind and alone, it saw nothing but the rapid passing of an endless sea of white. The fear it felt continued to rise, causing the crystals to tinkle as they shook. Suddenly the blindness…lifted, and fear suddenly became awe and astonishment. The Snowflake was still falling but now, stretched out before it, was a world of beauty. Colors of all sorts lay stretched out in all directions, glimmering silver stretching along paths, and stretches of green that reached upwards to the snowflake. As the snowflake began to remember it was hurtling downward no matter the beauty it saw, it bent its head to look below it.
Suddenly the wind caught it and its speed slowed. In a moment of curiosity the snowflake had begun a lazy drifting downward. Much to the surprise of the snowflake and much relief to it as well, it could now look about with the eyes of the awakened. All around it the world was vast and beautiful. Far larger than the sea of white it had know for so long. The beauty was so much the snowflake wept at the hand of God in its making.
All its life it had nothing. Just the now long missed friends it hung to till it had to let go. Now at the end it thought, I am given everything. In its voice it cried out thanks for being able to see, before it all ended. Lazily it drifted downward the world coming closer, and it was at peace. The snowflake found new things every time it looked about and continued to be awed at the world. Then below it noticed a scar in the beauty, in its own right the scar was beautiful. Glowing lines of red and gray and black contrasting with the greens and silver, but there were sounds now. Strange sounds of thumping and the snowflake could see new billows of black rise up after each one.
The snowflake watched as it drifted slowly down, it could tell that it was going to hit in the middle of this scar. A bit disappointed it tried to steer itself to a prettier part of the beauty to die in. But then something spoke to the snowflake. It didn’t know who or what, it could barely understand. But suddenly it knew what lay below, it was war and it was terrible. Things were dying in pain, this knowledge made the snowflake shiver again. It now knew what it had to do and changed its course again. Aiming straight for the middle of the scar stretching out closer and closer as the world…yes it was the world it thought… rose up to meet it. The snowflake did not know what it was doing or why. It just felt right.
It could feel the heat of the thumping and could see shapes moving along the now terrible beauty of war below it. It saw small shapes run to a fro, and fall to never move again. It watched hard large shapes spew out flame and heat and could see the multi colored thumping and billows of flame…death…yes death they brought. The snowflake so small and fragile trembled in fear again the crystals tinkled again in its shivers. It lasted but a moment as it felt its purpose grew near.
It was tossed about as it was so close now. It had to fight to stay on course to aim for the point it had chosen. Closer and closer it came as the sounds of the war reached it, as the heat and hot winds tore at it to rip it from its destination. The snowflake could feel as if something was trying to stop it, but on it came. More determined than ever, the snowflake tilted its head and dove down. Through the thumping it came. Through the hot blast of winds, it came. Down it went hurtling toward the world, past the hard shapes that flew through the air, like the sheeting rain of an angry thunderstorm, it came. The world was nothing but this scar now; it could see none of the beauty that had so awed it before. Just before the snowflake dashed itself against the scar of the world, it lifted its head and stopped to drift lazily again.
It knew this was the place it was to be. Its life had passed in mere moments from birth, to falling, to this. It thanked God for its life and purpose and gave itself into God’s care. Slowly it drifted and finally came to rest on a smooth round shape being held by one of the things that had been scurrying around. Its resting place was cold and comforting allowing the snowflake to cling and survive. It looked into the face of this thing and did not see anger or hate, but surprise. The thing looked closer at the snowflake and said something to others. More of the things came over to look at it. The snowflake shook and tinkled softly, a sound of hello.
The sounds had dulled as many gathered around to see the snowflake, which blushed at the attention of these things. Suddenly the snowflake heard its friends. They were all drifting down above him. They cried out in seeing the snowflake. It cried back in welcome and suddenly the air was filled with his friends, all following it to this place. The sounds of war grew silent and the snowflake clasped hands again with some of its friends that came near, it looked around slowly.
The large shapes that sent out death were quiet. The thumping sounds had stopped. All these things that had gazed at it were staring upward, and quickly; the scar was covered in a blanket of white. The snowflake felt the peace it had felt, as it enjoyed the beauty of the world. It held the hands of its friends tighter, as it saw the peace flow from the heavens to the world and saw it spread.
It thought to itself, a miracle this is, the war paused and anger turned to wonder. The things put down their round metal and offered a hand to each other. Then it heard the singing, the things were singing as they lighted little flames to hold in their hands. The snowflake and all its friends joined in with their soft tinkling sounds. The snowflake felt itself grow tired but had no fear. It knew that even the smallest things can do great good and as it passed it knew peace.
Merry Christmas with all my heart, may you be a small snowflake in someone’s life.
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