Drabble - Snowflakes
Going all the way back to December 2008. 2 years ago, and I was hella depressed. Then it snowed in Seattle...
Snowflakes flutter down from the grey skies and land all around her, the light flakes melting immediately upon impact, whether on the pavement that her tennis shoes walked upon, or on her slightly-pink, exposed to the cold air, nose. The wind played with the snowflakes, blowing them around whimsically and watching them twirl and flutter as they descended to their final destination.
The world around her continued on as if nothing special was happening, but Jenna just stood still and watched. It wasn't as if she had never seen snow before; in her sixteen years she had seen snow of all types: clumpy and wet, light and fluffy, and everything in between. It was just that today, with no reason to rush home or to rush anywhere, she realized that the simple dance between the thousands of snowflakes and the wind that directed them was both enchanting and depressing. It was a never-ending battle between the wind and the earth, as both pushed and pulled on the almost weightless white specks. Neither could agree upon how to treat these delicate constructs, and ultimately these delicate constructs found their final destination in all sorts of locations. The unfortunate part was that this destination also ended up being their final location.
What would it be like to be a snowflake? To live such a short life, to live a life where you had no control over your own destiny, to see yourself dying from the time you were born, to leave and disappear without a trace? To live and not be recognized individually, to just cause a moment of delight or of disgust. What would it be like to have one chance and one chance only to do something? In a life where she had to keep redefining herself with second and third chances or be seen as a "failure", Jenna couldn't imagine having just one shot at life. Then again, what could anyone expect out of you? The snowflake's journey was basically a kamikaze mission. Surely no snowflake spent time thinking about the consequences of its action, or about its legacy or its afterlife.
A car honks and she looks up briefly to see Kelsey, one of her classmates, wave at her. She doesn't move to approach the car but just stands there and smiles. Kelsey asks if she needs a ride home, and Jenna shakes her head. Kelsey asks what she was doing outside then, and Jenna just replies that she was just lost in her thoughts. She realizes how lame it sounded after it escapes from her mouth and smiles sheepishly. Kelsey, after a bit of waving and more shaking of Jenna's head, drives away and Jenna is left to ponder her existence once again. Of course someone like Kelsey, with a new car for her 16th birthday and a new dress that costs as much as all of Jenna's school clothes combined, wouldn't understand what is so special about simplicity. That doesn't matter to Jenna, who does decide that it is a bit too cold to remain outside with the snowflakes, but makes each and every step home a deliberate and conscious one. She would enjoy the snow today like it was the last one ever, and live her life more this way.
Snowflakes flutter down from the grey skies and land all around her, the light flakes melting immediately upon impact, whether on the pavement that her tennis shoes walked upon, or on her slightly-pink, exposed to the cold air, nose. The wind played with the snowflakes, blowing them around whimsically and watching them twirl and flutter as they descended to their final destination.
The world around her continued on as if nothing special was happening, but Jenna just stood still and watched. It wasn't as if she had never seen snow before; in her sixteen years she had seen snow of all types: clumpy and wet, light and fluffy, and everything in between. It was just that today, with no reason to rush home or to rush anywhere, she realized that the simple dance between the thousands of snowflakes and the wind that directed them was both enchanting and depressing. It was a never-ending battle between the wind and the earth, as both pushed and pulled on the almost weightless white specks. Neither could agree upon how to treat these delicate constructs, and ultimately these delicate constructs found their final destination in all sorts of locations. The unfortunate part was that this destination also ended up being their final location.
What would it be like to be a snowflake? To live such a short life, to live a life where you had no control over your own destiny, to see yourself dying from the time you were born, to leave and disappear without a trace? To live and not be recognized individually, to just cause a moment of delight or of disgust. What would it be like to have one chance and one chance only to do something? In a life where she had to keep redefining herself with second and third chances or be seen as a "failure", Jenna couldn't imagine having just one shot at life. Then again, what could anyone expect out of you? The snowflake's journey was basically a kamikaze mission. Surely no snowflake spent time thinking about the consequences of its action, or about its legacy or its afterlife.
A car honks and she looks up briefly to see Kelsey, one of her classmates, wave at her. She doesn't move to approach the car but just stands there and smiles. Kelsey asks if she needs a ride home, and Jenna shakes her head. Kelsey asks what she was doing outside then, and Jenna just replies that she was just lost in her thoughts. She realizes how lame it sounded after it escapes from her mouth and smiles sheepishly. Kelsey, after a bit of waving and more shaking of Jenna's head, drives away and Jenna is left to ponder her existence once again. Of course someone like Kelsey, with a new car for her 16th birthday and a new dress that costs as much as all of Jenna's school clothes combined, wouldn't understand what is so special about simplicity. That doesn't matter to Jenna, who does decide that it is a bit too cold to remain outside with the snowflakes, but makes each and every step home a deliberate and conscious one. She would enjoy the snow today like it was the last one ever, and live her life more this way.