The snow first started falling at 9.30pm on Christmas eve. It was the first time I’d seen mom smile in so long, and I mean really smile, not that fake smile that she puts on to try and tell me that everything is okay. This smile reached her eyes and would’ve kept on going all the way up to her auburn hair if it was possible. She always put me first, always. I’ll never be able to repay her for that. Shielding me from my demons and her own, which is why that smile on her face was better than any gift I’d find under the tree on Christmas morning.
The white powder was just starting to gather on the ground as we headed off to bed an hour later. It was a pretty sound sleep that night, I’d long since outgrown the tossing and turning that Christmas brings, a few empty trees will do that to you. I know now that mom couldn’t actually afford to spoil me the way that she wanted to, so anything was good enough for me.
We woke up at 8am, well, I woke up at 8am. And like any other self respecting 17 year old woman, I got into mom’s bed. The furnace is on the fritz, okay? It’s not like I _want_ to share a bed with my mom, but the frost on the inside of my window was less than inviting.
Eventually we headed down for breakfast and to swap gifts. I’d gotten mom some facemasks and a “relaxing” candle, god knows she needed some relaxation in her life. She gave me an eye shadow palette, which I was pretty happy with, her stale old eye shadow was not ideal for practising smokey eye with, but that’s another story for another time.
The snow had come down thick in the night, it must have been a foot deep at least. I’d never seen anything like it! Mom said it snowed this heavily maybe once or twice when she was a kid so she was super excited too. We put breakfast on hold, well, kinda. Mom made me have my multivitamin and OJ. She said “it’s good for your immune system in the cold!” Typical mom. The warm gear went on top of our PJs, getting out into that snow was way way more important than dressing ourselves.
We made a snowman each. I went for the traditional stacking of big snow balls with stick arms and a carrot nose. Mom, however, decided to get a bit maverick and tried to build a muscle man snowman. What he lacked in definition he definitely made up for in mass, i’ll give him that. Once the snowmen were built, the snow angels were made, and after that, the snow balls were thrown. We’d been out there for a good few hours when Mom had decided that my lips were a shade of blue she was no longer comfortable with. So we went in and tried our best to get warm.
The rest of Christmas was pretty uneventful. We gorged ourselves on turkey and ice cream, not in the same bowl of course, we watched a few movies and played a few rounds of Uno. Mom can get very, very intense with Uno, so I usually try to stop it after three rounds. Before we knew it, it was bed-time. Christmas was over for another year. At least we still had the snow to prolong the magic though.
Morning came again, my sleep was fitful this time, tossing and turning, feeling unsettled, anxious, but unable to pinpoint why. Waking up feeling extra rough, stuffy nose and a scratchy throat, I looked at my window. Surprise! Frozen again. Only this frost was much harsher, angry even. Slowly getting out of bed I walked over and tried to draw a smile with my finger on the glass. The ice was barely moved or melted to my touch, but before I could dwell on it too much my eyes wandered out to the lawn. The snowmen were still there, but with another foot of snow surrounding them and covering the tops of their heads. It was going to be a long day.
Breakfast was on the more depressing side, Mom couldn’t get the stove to work, so instead of having a balanced meal of scrambled egg, OJ and a vitamin, it was slightly stale cornflakes with OJ and a vitamin. Thank God for OJ. “We better hope the snow eases off a little tomorrow, kiddo. We need supplies, and these are running low” she said to me while shaking the bottle of vitamins. I’m not sure what use they are if I still catch a cold, but it’s important to her that I take them, so whatever, fight’s not worth the drama.
We thought about building another snowman each to keep us entertained, but the door wouldn’t budge. I don’t know if the door itself was frozen or if the snow outside had frozen like a white concrete and was blocking us in, whatever it was, neither of us were strong enough to brute force it, so we turned to the comforts of the great indoors. By lunchtime I couldn’t comprehend how bored I actually was. The TV was cutting out and I had no attention span for reading. I ended up napping most of the day just to pass the time. After an indiscernible amount of time Mom shook me awake, which I am slightly embarrassed to admit, I didn’t take too well. The stereotypical wide eyed big gasp inward panic and then trying to brush it off. I don’t think she bought it… Off upstairs we went. For another fitful night of sleep.
There were no actual nightmares, but the snow kept on coming in my dreams. It was unending, surrounding me. Every direction I turned all I could see was a thick white sheet. I couldn’t tell if I could make out any figures, but the anxiety I felt in the dream was so real. When I finally did wake up, I’d managed to carry that anxiety with me into consciousness, which was perfect. The window frost was as angry as yesterday, I thought about taking a hairdryer to it later on, it couldn’t be good for me living in a fridge. Glancing through the frosty panes the snow looked thicker again. It didn’t look like another foot, but it definitely looked solid.
Mom was stood in the kitchen, OJ and vitamin on the counter next to her. She was vacant. Her eyes were staring out the window but I knew her mind was further away. Concerned. That’s the best way I could describe it. I pulled the chair from under the table a little more loudly than i normally would, the noise roused her and she looked at me with a smile. A smile with painful eyes. She was definitely concerned. It’s not like the snow is that bad, and we have plenty of food stores. Enough for a week or so I’d say. Sure we’d get sick of canned peaches, but we wouldn’t starve by any means. She walked over to me, put a plate of toast down, with the old faithful orange juice and half a vitamin. Half… That was weird. I looked up at her. She could clearly see the confusion on my face. “I’m sorry sweetie. Looks like I won’t be able to get a top up until the New Year, so we’ll have to ration them out.”
“Okay mom, as long as you make sure you’re taking some too. I don’t want you getting sick in the cold.” Funny, I don’t remember actually ever seeing Mom take her vitamins, but I also don’t watch her every move, she probably took hers before I got up or something.
The power gave up completely that day until the late evening. So it was another day of snacking on Christmas chocolate and napping on the sofa.
It was at this point where the days started to blur. Wake up, check the snow, breakfast routine, kill time until bed, sleep, or try to anyway, and then wake up and do it all again.
After another night of interrupted sleep and dreams of the snow closing in on me I woke up with my heart racing, but when I sat up, my head still felt weightless, like I was still dreaming. I decided that all I needed was a nice strong coffee to perk me up. Again following my new routine I looked out at the snow, same as it had been for days now. Turning away to head downstairs I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was a snowman. Not our snowman. Another one. But this one was unsettling. I was tall and thin. It didn’t have any features on its perfectly round head. Yet somehow it felt as though it was looking directly up into my window. It took some effort to tear my eyes away. Definitely needed that strong coffee. The troubled sleep was catching up with me clearly.
Oatmeal for breakfast today, supplies are definitely starting to dwindle. OJ downed, vitamin swallowed, and oatmeal unenthusiastically eaten, it was time for coffee. Pouring myself a nice big mug I asked Mom why she made another snowman without waiting for me. She gave me such a weird look and said the door was still frozen shut. At this I looked past her and out into the yard. One snowman. Two snowmen. Only two stood out there. Absolutely no sign of a third. No eerily perfect spherical head. No frozen sentinel staring up at me. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. I could feel Mom staring at me while I was looking out the window. No idea what her problem is. Regardless, I needed a good night’s sleep.
I tried to avoid napping from then on. I’d lost track of the days. I could quite easily look at a calendar or check a phone to find out, but I was starting to feel a little disconnected from the world, with no inclination to actually seek the date or time. All I knew was breakfast time and when the snow dreams began. I took to drawing to fill the time. Trying to draw the snowman from the morning. But I could never get the head right. It was never perfect enough. So I would scribble it out and try again, getting more irritated every time I messed up. I stopped paying attention to Mom, she would ask me questions but I could never make out the words, I didn’t want to. I needed to make the snowman. He deserved my full concentration. He deserved to be perfect. I snapped out of it when Mom snatched the pencil out of my hand. It was dark, time to sleep. I was excited to sleep. If I went to sleep I might catch a glimpse of him again in the morning.
I went up to bed without saying a word to Mom. Didn’t change my clothes or brush my teeth. I walked up the stairs and into my room. Looked out the window. No snowman. Turning, I got into bed, shut my eyes and drifted off within minutes. The dreams seemed to continue from where they left off. In a wide open space, or was it confined? It was so snowy it was hard to tell. I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face, but I could feel the presence of something. Multiple things. There were faint outlines. Tall figures. Perfectly round heads. Moving yet unmoving. Far away but claustrophobic at the same time. My heart was racing the whole time. Only, it wasn’t anxiety anymore. It was something different. Anticipation maybe. The dream ended with no event. I was awake. It was morning,
I didn’t feel rested. But I wasn’t tired either. I simply was. The routine started once more. I went to the window. There he was. No. There they were. Multiple. Tall and great with their perfect heads. Staring up at me. Worshipping me. Adoring me. I needed to be with them. Walking silently down the stairs I made my way to the back door. It pushed open with some effort. When I looked up through the open door they were gone. Tears welled my eyes. How could they? They invited me down to them and they vanish? I stooped down and grabbed a handful of snow and started to compact it together. If I couldn’t draw them perhaps I could make one. I must have been out there for quite a while before Mom came down. She sprinted over to me. Her words sounded muffled. Like she was underwater. I was pulled inside and wrapped up. She was crying. I don’t know why. I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t hurt. I just wanted to make them. I wanted to see them up close. She was babbling about sickness and apologising, but I had never felt better. I might not have felt much at all. But I had a purpose, a goal.
She tried to feed me breakfast. Only a quarter of a vitamin today. She said there’s only two more quarters left. When did she stop giving me halves? I didn’t say anything. I didn’t look at her. I swallowed the quarter and sat, staring out of the window until the sun sank into the sky. When the light had faded I shuffled back up to my room, straight past the bathroom. I’d not been in there for days I thought to myself, but as quickly as the thought entered my mind it left again. There wasn’t much room left for anything other than the perfect round heads and their tranquil blank expressions.
The dreams were much the same. Yet every night it felt as though the figures were creeping closer. No. Not creeping. Approaching. They wouldn’t creep if they meant me no harm surely. They offered me something. But what, I didn’t know.
There was no memory of waking the next morning. Lucidity found me standing at my window. They weren’t there. I felt hollow. Sick. Alone. My imitations from the day previous were still there, but it looked as if somebody had tried to tear them all down, why would anyone do that? No. Not anyone. Mom. She was the only one who could’ve done that. I felt the anger rise in my chest and the loss and pity for my broken snowmen strewn across the yard. I marched down to the back door. Mom was stood by it, putting something in her pocket. The door was locked. We never lock the door. There’s no one around for miles. There was no need to lock the door. Why was she keeping me away from them, and them away from me? The anger was boiling to a point. I couldn’t get out there to mourn for what I’d lost. She didn’t understand and she was keeping me from them. How could she? How dare she.
Another lapse in consciousness. I don’t think I passed out. I think maybe the fog got too thick so that I couldn’t see through it. But I was aware, or as much as I could be. I didn’t know where Mom was. Or the key. But I was stood in the bathroom. I must’ve been going to bed and took a wrong turn while in my haze. The reflection staring back at me was not my own. My face was blank. If it wasn’t for the pain deep in my eyes I would’ve looked tranquil. I turned and walked to my room. I couldn’t hear any signs of Mom, but then again, I don’t think I was listening. I wasn’t in control anymore. I only had thoughts for one thing, and I was hoping to see them in my dreams.
The dream was cold. Colder than before. The snow wasn’t as heavy. I could make out where I was. My garden. There was one tall snowman right in front of me. The head, perfect. Not as tall as I thought it would be, but still taller than me. It was so cold. The dream felt so real. I felt so connected to the snowman. Enamoured by its perfection. I wish Mom could see how amazing it was. I wish she would just accept the beauty in its blank face. The dream was starting to wain. I felt grief. I didn’t want it to end. But I was moving back towards the house and I couldn’t stop. I was receding back inside my mind. The autopilot taking over. Vision was dark. Black. I couldn’t see anything. Was I sleeping? No. I could still hear infrequent sounds. A loud bang. A clatter of objects. Something being dragged. The crunch of snow underfoot. But I felt nothing. I saw nothing.
It was bright outside. I was lying on my bed. Cold. My socks were wet. Feet freezing. I felt a bit more like myself. Once the dreams had ended I must have gotten real sleep. For the first time in maybe a week. It was hard to keep track of time. I sat up. Changed into dry clothes. Why were my PJs so dirty? Leaving the room I glanced out of the window. One of them was out there. Stood next to our snowmen. My stack of balls and Mom’s muscle man. Mom…
I couldn’t remember speaking to her the day before. Calling out to her with my eyes still glued to the snowman. Silence. No answer at all. She was probably in the kitchen. It took everything I had within me to tear my eyes from the snowy figure. It didn’t look right. The head wasn’t perfect. It was barely taller than me. It filled me with unease. The staircase was littered with scraps of paper. Circles at the top of tall bodies. No single circle being close to perfect. Making my way to the kitchen the trail of paper continued. The kitchen was empty. No sign of Mom. No OJ. No vitamins. I couldn’t truly remember my last vitamin dosage. Hoping I wouldn’t get sick my eyes drifted to the back door. The curtain was torn down. The key in the lock but the door ajar. Dirty tracks leading in and out. I walked to the door and pushed it open fully. The tracks lead over to the snowmen. The tall one was still there. Stood proud. Although, it’s shoulders seemed to stoop. It wasn’t stood straight and proud like the ones in my dreams. It was leaning slightly forward with the not perfect head bowed over. Transfixed on the snowman I start to feel the fog come over me again. Only this time i’m filled with dread. Heart racing. Hands sweating. Throat is dry. Eyes wide open. Approaching the figure. Stopping a few feet away. Staring. It stared back at me. The blank face is not perfect. Nor is it tranquil. It does not match what was in my dreams. But I can’t look away. Eyes locked on a feature that figure had in my dreams or visions, not captured in any drawing.
On the top of the not perfect head. A lock of auburn hair.