Love One Another

Love One Another

***Placed 3rd in Colin's Flash Fiction in the Snow Contest(251-500)***

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Yuki poked out of the snow like an upside-down icicle. He was a snowman.

He was a mound of white snow not well packed together, and often some of his powdery snow would plummet down from his chin or armpit to the snowy floor, but he ignored it.

His head was a giant ball of snow that looked as if it would peel away from his body at any moment. He had two lumps of black coal for his eyes, and more pressed into his face for a wonky smile.

He had no nose, for a hungry fox had come in the night and eaten it. His arms had come from two winter-naked trees, but one was long and the other short. All his clothing was a tiny red scarf around his neck.

Yuki’s heart was a ruby inside of him. He did not know he had it.

On the village green, families were coming out after lunch. Fathers pelted their sons with snowballs, and then tried to hide from them. Girls perched on tea trays and went skiing down snowdrifts.

Mothers looked on with contented faces, while young cousins pranced and skated on the iced-over lake. Nobody came up to Yuki, because he was an ugly, messy-looking snowman.

Yuki did not mind the families. He was watching an old woman through the window of her house. She was alone, she had been on her own all day. Nobody had given the woman any presents or cards this Christmas.

Yuki was not particularly beautiful, but his heart was.

The woman had taken lunch by herself. She now watched the television, even as Yuki watched her. He felt her loneliness piercing him like a sharp arrow. More snow peeled off him, and Yuki noticed that he was melting.

He yearned to help the woman, but his frozen body hindered him and he could do nothing. He was only a snowman. He had no legs to move with, no voice - not even a nose like the other snowmen.

Kiyuko sighed, and closed the door behind her. She loathed the coldness of the English weather. It was hot where she was from, the south-west of Japan. She was going for a walk, because she had nothing else to do.

Kiyuko picked her way across the village green. She was a widow, with little money and few friends in either England or Japan. She had come here with her husband years ago because of work. She had no children.

"Eh? What...?" Kiyuko stopped. Next to some coal and tree she had stumbled across a red scarf. Kiyuko pounced on it, for it was hers. She had mislaid it at the post office on Thursday as she collected her pension.

The scarf had drunk thirstily from the pooled water that had recently been Yuki, but it still felt too heavy for just material. Kiyuko opened the scarf and looked inside. A ruby lay before her, like a red heart, and all its love was for her. She smiled.

"The winter spirit/ looked on as a widow’s heart/ melted once again."

Word count= approx. 500