Let The Snowman Melt

In the brisk wind sitting there was a gloomy man. Silently thinking about all those things that are wrong with him. The paper wrapped can of liquor deliberately rested on the wooden bench next to him while he stared at the melting snow on the tiled foot path. It used to be a park filled with green foliage but now just a scene of white apathy which is slowly setting down by the warmth of the sun.

The man was Alan Miles, married since two years with a beautiful woman Linda. Yesterday was their anniversary which he incuriously forgot. Linda and him were in covenant of love since 5 years. Things were beautiful till the year before, but slowly it started to melt, like the drops dripping from the melting snow of the footpath. And he sat there thinking all the things he hate about her, every single thing that annoys him, every single thing that made him regret that he ever loved her.

It was 7 in the morning the surroundings were still cold. He didn’t felt any because of the warmth of hatred that ignited his whole body. Yes, he was sitting there all night,  not sleeping a second, not drinking a sip from the bottle he had, just making his thoughts ramble in his mind all night, sitting in agony, believing that things can never be alright. Time was going slow like the dripping snow. They fought over elementary things, those facile topics that made both of them heated towards each other. They topics were insignificant that if a third person might hear them he would find them comical. They fought over how he never did chores, how she never made nice food for him, how he acts effortless over spending time together and other common things that they felt a reason to be annoyed at.

Only sound he could hear was the sound of thumping wind on the enormous trees which are slowly shredding their  white innocence and becoming green, becoming who they really are. After having a talk session between him and his inner mind Alan decided to look up.

 He saw the whole territory filled with some grass peeping over its white sheet of snow. No one else than him was in the parameter of silence. Just there stood a snow bank, a small snowbank, somewhat of a height of 5 feet, stood there peculiarly, looked like someone made it. But why would someone make a snowbank. Alan was the kind of person who never felt a tint of excitation over building a snowman. He was confused seeing a manmade snowbank during the farewell of the winter. This was not the way someone would welcome spring.

He stood from the wooden chair. His body felt the shiver of the mild cold wind, he rubbed his eyes and started to walk towards the snowbank, slowly. For the first time since the last night he didn’t thought about her. He walked calmly. He stepped on the sheet of cold snow hearing a very mild crushing sound of the grass beneath it. He walked toward the snowbank.

 As he was close enough to get its clear view, he found out it was an unpleasant effort of someone making a snowman. But there was something that appeared to be exceptional in the heap of snow. A dull whitish-yellow pointy object peeped out from the bright white snow. He grabbed it from its nip and twitched it out. It was an Envelope. He jerked it to shed off the snow. “For MY GABRIELLA JENE” the envelope spell, beside it was a smiley face. Alan was startled with the fact that there was no address or date written on it and how someone forgot it inside a snowman.

He opened it from the other side, the glue appeared to be dried off. Inside it was just a paper. He removed the page off the envelope. As he unfolded it he found out that the whole page was empty, just a single line, handwritten.

“ You were right, our last snowman is the way you told it would be”

Alan was obviously confused, he couldn’t straighten up a piece of the story. Why was there a snowman is the middle of a silent park, and why was a letter providing no sense, lying pointlessly inside it.

        But suddenly he heard a sound of throbbing wheels coming towards him. He looked back and on the path, in front of the wooden bench he was sitting on, he saw an old man walking slowly towards him. In his hands was a handle which was connected to the small oxygen tank on a trolley. From the trolley was a cannula attached to his nose giving out oxygen from the tank. The man looked really old. He stood on the footpath and smiled when Alan made an eye contact with him. He rested the oxygen tank on the footpath, gently removed his cannula and hung it on the handle, and started to walk slowly towards Alan.

“ What a beautiful day, young man” He came close and said.

Alan didn’t move or replied. The old man smiled.

“ You might have something that belongs to me” He said while gesturing towards the letter.

“ I found this lying this in the snow”

The old man chuckled.

“ This is much the effort an old man can do to make a snowman. These  hands lack the power to assemble a beautiful snowman my dear ”

“ You made this?” Alan asked in a visible confusion.

He stared at the snowman. It was purely visible that his eyes were watery, but it couldn’t hinder the smile on his face.

“ It is a long story my friend, a really beautiful one” The old man said while pulling back the tears in his eyes.

“ I am Gerald Jene, and you must be……” He waited for Alan’s response.

“ Alan, Alan Miles….”

Alan continued “If it is not unpleasant to ask, can I ask you what are you doing with this”

“ There was a little game me and my wife used to play. During our early years of marriage we struggled through a lot of problems. It wasn’t going well, we fought too much. It was somewhat the end of Winter. One day we fought so much that we didn’t talk for 3 days. After the third day she came to me and handed me a piece of paper and said write all the incidents and things you hate about me. I was shocked but I still wrote 15-20 things that I hate about her. She slid the paper in an envelope and made two snowman. One was hers in which she wrote the things she hate about me. She hid the letters in each snowman. She came to me and said ‘let the snowman melt, the letter in the last snowman will be empty’. A couple of weeks passed and the snowmen melted to their base. We read each others letters and found out there was the things we hate about each other were so senseless that we laughed over reading them. Years and years past and we did the same thing. We made a snowman in the start of the season and waited it to melt. Every year we try to change ourselves. But soon we started to notice that letter started to become small and small and the things we hated about each other started to decrease. As she said the last letter was empty. It is not wrong for changing ourselves for the people we love”

“Where is Mrs. Jene now?” Alan asked in the essence of his curiosity.

“I don’t know. Somewhere there” He Looked up and said.

“When I couldn’t take care of myself they took me to the Old Age Home, and this became my backyard” He pointed towards a building other side of the road of the park.

“Why do you still do this then?”

“ This is a promise we made, this made our spring beautiful and year even more beautiful. This is a pact of love my dear, it defies the boundaries of mortality.”

The old man’s words hit into Alan’s head like a strong axe hit into a tree’s branch.

“ Give me my letter. I have to go my friend, they are taking me to the city, some of them say I have less time to live” the Old man said. He Shook Alan’s hand and walked away.

The phone rang. Alan woke up on the wooden bench. All of this was just an act of his imagination. He was surprised over the fact that all of that was just a dream. The wrapped bottle of liquor was still lying on the bench near him. He gave himself a moment to think. But as he was grabbing the bottle he saw something written on the wooden bench.

“IN THE LOVING MEMORY OF  GERALD AND GABRIELLA JENE”

 A wave of realization hit his heart. He stood up and started to run towards his house.

He smashed open the main door, where he found Linda sitting on the coffee table. A look of worry can be seen on her face which she was trying to hide with a sullen look, trying to claim that she is not a prisoner of his love.

Alan grabbed a piece of paper and handed it to Linda and simply said

“LET THE SNOWMAN MELT”.