Snow House
by Leila Rousseau
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Softness is comparable to the findings of the day. Find them innocent and pretty, their light touch will never betray virgin purity. Find them buoyant and tough, their eager hands will be tiresome and the comments obscene. They are as you are, treading on this earth, often lifting the dead leaves from the undergrowth to spare the new. You may find them tender, as powdered layers of snow over a pillow for dreams, or as a flame seducing hard ice, flickering its eyes of love, while vapourising every layer. Softness, watch now until it is tainted, in you and in her.
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A tiny rose. Mauve bud, held in her hand. The sun awoke this girl on the same day she had clipped the flower from the estuary. Morning walks were focussed, breathing fresh air and thinking about life and the day to ensue. Some places more spirited than others. Her legs were as beautiful, when compared to passers' by. Laziness was not her fight. It was day, rushing to the night. Some small reason to memorise the day, remembering the colours and the flavours and the perfumes.
Never to remember words, just washing away would cleanse her skin from the phrases and whinging that could gnaw at even the most armoured soul. This girl could hear all of the sniggers and they were far out-weighed by laughs and funny jokes. But still, she couldn't bare it. She would rather live in silence than to hear superfluous chatting and the awful female pitches.
Gathering speed, the feet wanted to jump. Energy to cut a glacier with only several pounces. Always breaking free from a stagnant challenge, Tandra was completely oblivious to other walkers. This was until she saw a family of ducks, a mother with two ducklings bobbed along the mangroves peacefully. Then the mother paddled much farther from her followers, their pace without her mature tenacity. Perhaps it would emanate. Tandra slid back into the roaming thought, avoiding her social habits of narcissism and flirting. The larger her strides, the happier she became in recluse. She wasn't shutting herself from the world, she was shutting herself in wide-open spaces.
Slow spitting motion was the way the town, the city, rejected her. Tandra knew she'd be welcomed to others in the country, but the hallow spat her across the waters. On the last day she paced the riparian, she saw two grown ducks, dipping under the clear shallows. Tandra wandered what would be so close to the land, that made the shy ducks dine in. And, why was it so unmudded here? Further the dirty way, nearer the cleaner, and post for remote ideals, untravelled distances. Was it possible that the traffic moved the junk around so much? Why wouldn't yachts and ferry boats be banned from swimming, it must be too cloudy to see, for the fish and the ducks.
Tandra was known to talk. She listened to others too. Always in an effort to be inspired and learn the ways of others. She was popular, her laughter responded kindly to good and bad humour. Her sharp colours and super style were much appreciated by the dull and she was admired by her peers. Her toned back and forceful arms ensured she wouldn't be talked back to, even after creating a stir with bold suggestion or poor wit on a slow day.
Tandra looked through open windows, as though waiting a red wren to fly in to tell her an important truth. Instead, the sunshine glared on the panes, and the wind shut them abruptly. The apricot clouds darkened to avoid her gaze. Why are only the inside of her eyelids the acceptable look for Tandra? Must she be invisible or must the world be black? She grabbed the curtain and dragged it across. Then she almost tore the other, sheltering the earth from her staring eyes. She daren't take a mirror in her hand. Tandra dreaded her morning walk in the morrow.
Tandra was is love with so many things, a collection of things: some gypsy music with violins and guitars strumming wildly, dandelions. When she was a child, she picked bunches of yellow spots with long furry stems with her sister for her mother, much to the annoyance of her father. Though she, with her little sibling, was only alluding to her mother's amusement. And again, not in spite of her Father, though his temper was tipped with a sprinkling of flour or salt. Sometimes it seemed the balance weight was a pale of vinegar. Tandra loved deep crunching snow like in the north, it fell so thick among the pines. Squirrels and little animals running around on important business. Bright woolen jumpers to avoid the winter blues. Cafes with only candle lighting and couches to snuggle on.
It was a long interval between the bad day and when Tandra left the house. A lot of berry and ginger tea was drunk, the wooden floor was thoroughly wiped down by her warm socks, and she didn't know what the weather had been doing outside. Tandra decided to leave the house, because she thought it was her duty to understand what was happening far and wide.
She took the train north, the hours and hours were spent watching the fir trees grow blacker and bleaker, and then like a flock of sheep, they were white, and so powdered with snow. Tandra was not sure if the snow was worse than the blackness before. Was the snow the after effect? She remembered a time when, from her window, she would see rolled up snow. The ball would forever gather snow until it was so big it could be a mountain, and melt in the spring, after a lot of sun rays, into a lake.
The snow was there for sure, like it was falling all over the world. How would she know? It has taken so long already to find this. maybe if she goes back, the snow will be falling in the south. Tandra exited the train coach and stepped out to the meters depths, that she would press in almond shapes with her boots. The north was the only place now with snow. Somehow or other, there would be only one way to share the snow with the south. The tallest hill, the largest snowball, and the biggest push. If it was possible to avoid destruction along the way, maybe use a cleared road and put up signs for the animals.
An old man discussed her idea with the fluffy faced locals, and they decided that it was impossible. Another question came about, the same question Tandra pondered: was the world changing now, and if putting snow where the world would melt it, would it only be a nuisance and delay some bigger better plans made for the globe?
It bothered Tandra, that she didn't know why the sun had closed its eyes on her, and why it was pitch black in the south and without the white sprinkling. These Northerners didn't understand the confusion. She sell backwards into the mould and just thought that maybe she should move to this place, so she could be with the heavenly blanket. How long would it be though, until the winters grew dark and wet. Would the southern storms and vengeance push up to the north? How far, and when? A few years? A hundred? Where would the snow reside if there is no northern refuge? Perhaps the equator. Or would it float in orbit while it waits for the water to calm, and the sun to glow kindly.
For a decade Tandra tidied her cabin cottage in the north. Every winter wading through the front yard out to the firs. Every summer drawing the turquoise curtains just before sundown. Tandra had been photographing snowflakes. After 10 years of winters, she had 19223 specimens, almost enough to fill a whole bucket, or create a snowman's head. Tandra created a snow castle too. It took 12 days to have a nice one ready, and if she remembered nuts and seeds and wheat, then the beings of the the tundra would jump around the palace and it became quite alive and happy.
Tandra laughed at the animals playing about, and she fed them sometimes too. Later in the day, when the fun had been had, the rats came to finish off the seeds, and they scurried for shelter, somewhere warmer than the snow house. They wouldn't dare enter the cabin, but there was a tree stump with a burrow underneath it, that was cosy after supper.
Tandra received a letter from her friend in the south. She heard of a storm moving from the other side of the world. It was expected to go north and then approach Tandra's latitude. The storm was a snow storm, but it may excite rains. Creoleah would visit tandra by train and bring supplies and a helping hand for necessary renovations.
Several days after, Creoleah packed over the salty walkway, and hugged Tandra. There was no need to ask for toast, as Tandra had prepared pomegranate juice, blackberry tea, rye bread and salad toppings. Breakfast was served. Creoleah showed her the bolts and drills needed to tie the house down, and Tandra made her bed. Creoleah explained the problems in the south during the spring. The cities were predominated by wetlands and bullrushes were the most common flower. Water lilies too, imported from China and Nymphaes from Paris, the lotus and chestnuts too. But the daffodils and jonquils would only grow in pots in apartments away from the cold rains. Most of the city was so ugly and dirty now, not like while ago.
Creoleah didn't return to the south. Writing to her mother that Tandra needed help during the storm, and to send another tarpaulin in case the floors became damp. Sometimes Creoleah would wander off past the forest and come back with some machined wood palings. She intended to extend the cabin, so the both of them could live there. Actually, the extra room was for food stores in case the storms would keep them locked in for weeks. Tandra sadly pulled out a dinghy and its paddles. Creoleah said it was for the best that we have that, ready as we don't know what to expect. She tied the boat under the front porch.
Creoleah's family wrote, the storm was due on the 5th of January on the North Pole, so to expect it later in the day as it had grown rough. Tandra was not scared. Three days to go, they were ready. The two had been building a snow castle outside the cabin, to encase it. Part of the front yard and the tree stump were included in the structure. There was four squirrels and a few wrens, and a little hedgehog. The ice roof was attached to the cottage roof for the initial construction, and it was, excepting this, totally freestanding in a dome, like an Eskimo's igloo. Creoleah wiped the icy patches, so they could all see outside.
All four squirrels bounded into the house at once, The ground shook and the pantry rattled. The curtains were open to the ice view, and the wrens were perched on the rails. Their wings flapped a little as they jumped with fright. Tandra lit more candles, ready for a gust of wind. Creoleah was sure, the snow castle would hold, and the cabin would stay. She paddled to the door and shut it behind her. Wearing a coat made from local furs, Creoleah was sure, the house would not blow down. Her ears listened at the wall, through the earmuff, the ice and surely a layer of snow. Nothing. The wall and ground rumbled again and she heard the sound of picks smashing into the ice ceiling. Creoleah returned to the cabin. The ice meteors were still falling, for hours. The tarpaulin would be useless if the ice roof was broken, but Creoleah and Tandra climbed over the timber and fixed the plastic across to provide protection for their shelter.
How long would this last The pounding stopped and started again. They ate and slept and waited. Rivers and lakes would surely be formed mid Winter now, no tundra would survive, no reindeer herder would see his flock again. Perhaps go east for the winter, forever, if the Russians permitted. Not even a flux on the market this year, reindeer meat would die with their farmed and loved souls, and with the acres of former dry lands and snow fields, and with the ancient art of the farmers. The families of farmers would have to learn to boat and fish, and swim, and build their shelters on floating platforms.
How long would a thick wall last? Made from ice it would surely be molten in an hour if hit by water. Should rain like torrents of promiscuous ants falling from the sky, to scare those animals and people living peacefully. The walls would engulf the water, sinking everything protected by it, and the water would permeate the barriers by chewing through it like fast old gums, in a very painful manner.
Tandra and Creoleah hammered at the snow castle. The wall was strong, and the iron strikes only nibbled at the blocks. They decided to keep the enclosure. It was sturdy against their toil, and would surely be a marvel against the weather. With nothing to do, they thought a lot and waited a lot more.
For days and nights, black but for the fluorescent worry of the winter sky and the quivering candlelight fires, the question returned and re-question. How long would this last? How long would these thick walls last? How land would it be until anyone of them was sure it was safe to go outside? How long would it take to escape the lasting walls? Oh, would a mother of ours knock at the door with a box of answers, all reading <
One of the squirrels jumped out to the yard when Creoleah opened the door. The little animal scratched at the wall. If the wall was to be melted from the outside, it would have by now. Creoleah and Tandra spared no effort, the wall of the snow castle was gradually broken away, revealing thick fluffy snow. Tandra drove her shovel through over a metre of the fluff. The castle would be snowed in during the week at this rate. Everyone evacuated . The ski racquet shoes were necessary to avoid plunging into the strenuous depths. The dinghy was pushed and dragged for miles. Possibly some houses were already covered, as there were no signs of road clearing or other people. Three was no wind to freeze them or compass to guide them.
Was it snowing everywhere? Tandra wanted to travel south to make sure. Perhaps it would be worse now, after the rains and the storms. The quiet crunching of their progress across the glistening white made Tandra nervous. If only it hadn't snowed after the floods.
Leila
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