Globe

Please, please come in. You can put your coat on the stand by the door.

Would you like some coffee or tea? I have a kettle that is electric and they tell me that things are better when life goes faster. I'm not sure.

Okay, I was expecting you earlier, but that does not matter. I seem to have more than a day to finish everything before they pack up my life and forget about me.

No, I don’t mean you. I called you for a reason.

They are not taking everything, you know. I decided a long time ago to make sure that certain things would not just disappear into the back of a truck or in the vault of some museum. There are just some things that need to be shared with the world. And you need to hear something very important before I end our little talk.

I need to share this with you.

Yes, a snow globe. A very special one...

Strange to have one here, don’t you think? Not one flake of snow in ages and people think more about sunburns than frostbite in this town. But I am not from this town and have a history that most people know nothing about.

Oh, you did not know that? I don’t talk too much about it when I do go to particular events and speak like someone respectable and worth your time. People always want to hear the old lady say her piece. Or maybe they just want me to stay quiet and then move on with their day.

But there are stories I have never shared.

And that globe?

That was where I was born.

My hometown is not a place that you would want to visit, not even today. It was just a small farming community when I was a little girl, and now it seems to have been abandoned to just mini-malls and storage centres (I still look it up sometimes; not the biggest fan of the Internet, but that Google does have a lot of information). There was a school that we all went to – quite gone and forgotten now – and I had many friends who came from even smaller towns and villages not too far away. I had a happy childhood, even with all of things that we did not have.

And there were other things that no one would want.

People always have a way of dressing up the bad with the good when things get too painful. I don’t think I can be bothered with it anymore. Not after everything that I have seen in a too-long life.

Right, so, the snow globe. The details are incredible and I am still impressed...

Look carefully at the scene.

A frozen pond, a group of kids and a beautiful sunny day. It was a beautiful sunny day, as I remember it. When winter hit, we always waited until it was safe enough to go out on that little spot (no one ever named it; still strikes me as strange). The ice was usually think enough by December. Usually...

Thing is, it was safe. Every sign said that it was. Old Man Davis had the property and his dogs always ran across it with him, so no one thought a damn thing was going to happen when we came out.

Poor Bobby…

He was so young…and so stupid. But I was the dumbest one there. I ran across that thing after watching those dogs skid across it to the other side. I just did not think that I was heavier than a couple of Golden Retrievers that were chasing squirrels and I heard it crack.

Thought I was alone and that was it. And then…

He came out of nowhere and pushed me real hard from behind before he fell in. What I remember is getting mad at him for hitting me and making me bruised. And then I saw what happened…

No one believed me.

No one.

My mother and father almost dragged me from there when they saw what was happening, and the other kids would not speak to me when their parents started to accuse me of his death.

Bobby…

No one knew he was my boyfriend, or at least my closest friend. Everyone thought that I hated him because we always seemed to complete in class over grades or spelling competitions, but that just made it easy for us to spend so much time in each other’s company.

And then…

Sorry, just an old lady trying to tell her stories and not really understanding how time cannot heal anything. Never believe anyone who says that wounds get healed.

Oh, yes. That snow globe…

You are probably wondering why a town like that would even have snow globes. It was too small for that. You could not even get a postcard with the place’s name on it.

I made it.

Strange, I know. But I had to have some sort of memory of the place. And of dear Bobby.

I always did wonder how they made those things. Those flakes…

Bobby was buried and we found him years after the incident when I was just a bad memory for many people, and no one would recognize my face. Or the people I hired to exhume him. And to make that wonderful memento.

A sin? No, this was done for love. I made sure that the ashes were not stuck in some urn after the cremation. And to leave the remains rotting in the ground like that? No way. Even the people I hired, once they got over their nausea and disgust, took the body away and covered their work.

So, here he is, my dear Bobby. Always gliding happily on the lake in the middle of a winter wonderland. I think that I did a good job of it. Can you see? Can you see it?

Please keep this somewhere safe and private. Not everyone understands what true love can be.