Snow

When the snow first started falling, no one knew that it wouldn’t stop. The people were grateful because they had never seen snow. Now theirs would be a snow town for a while. Articles were written because it was a miracle.

Then, the first houses started caving in. There was snow inside the toilet bowls. Women cried and cried, and the government felt helpless because how could snow clouds be pushed away? Pundits made some money with ceremonies. Marriages were banned because they said so. When it just wouldn’t stop snowing, they decided marriages should be performed because Judgment Day was coming. Havans made halls warmer for a while. Woolen saris were woven. Wolves came visiting. Pressing scared dogs tightly in their mouths, they watched the fire as the ceremonies went on.

It couldn’t last long.

One by one, the women left the once-grateful town. They were scared of waking their husbands, so they tiptoed out in their woolen saris. Some of them froze in the snow. There wasn’t enough fire to spend on cremations so, for a while, the frozen statues were pushed off into corners. Crying was a waste: even tears froze. When there were too many of them, their children carried their statues out of the town on their little feet.

Men didn’t have the time, really. While the children were out, they visited discreet places. They wouldn’t tell anything to anyone. They never left notes. They fell in love. They covered up. They made delicate ice creams for their little boys for when they would come back. Their little girls got the warmest chair, the hottest chocolate. They waited for their girls to grow up.

It couldn’t last long.

One day, the snow just melted. The frozen women miraculously came back to life. There was nowhere to go now, so they came home and their men stopped falling in love with their little girls.

Spring

They ripped each other’s clothes off and sewed them back together. They did it for as long as they could, and when they couldn’t afford to buy the needles and the threads anymore, they felt that a softer lovemaking was necessary. They mellowed down under the sky, and loved each other slowly. They made music and that music was everywhere. No needles were necessary.

Then one day the girl fell in love with somebody else. Somebody who laughed at how she had made love before. He was a tailor passing by at the local village fair. He made her threads of many colors, and explained how ripping apart and putting it back again had nothing to do with being able to afford anything. The band played music at the back, even as he kissed her and explained it to her over and over again.

The girl’s first lover found no traces of this new love in her when she came back home at night, arrayed in clothes lovelier than he had ever seen before. He suspected nothing when she pulled the threads out, one by one, and asked him to do the same. The old passion had come back again. They made love and slept for the longest night.

In the morning, the tailor had gone away to a new town and the girl was happy to see he had left behind all the needles in the square.

Sewing was now so much more easier.

Snow

The little girl straightened out her costume and went to dance.

The auditorium was full of a dark light. The little girl couldn’t even see her parents. They had promised to come – they must be sitting in the front row. She squinted as a spotlight squeaked. The technician cursed under his breath because the light wouldn’t work. Everything felt silent, still. Suddenly, a moon descended upon her cloudy dress; light, drafty, it shifted with the girl. The technician sighed in relief, he stubbed out his cigarette.

Soon the music started to play. A ballad about a winter’s rose. Girls cascaded all around her while she assumed a swan shape. It was cold, but she was not wearing any shoes. The little girl had once been told that only the scared ones wore expensive shoes and perfume. Only the scared ones piled up in files, didn’t eat right, cheated. The little girl was not scared. Even in the cold, she was not scared. Her naked feet adorned in sheer stockings, the other girls danced while she remained a swan. Music played, sweet and slow. The floor creaked under their feet’s heavy tread. Some more minutes, and the air got too heavy for breathing. Struggling with the stale air and the sound of shoes, people in the audience took to whispering. No one left, though; they all lay in a terrible wait.

Five minutes, a cue, and then the stillness broke.

Applause sounded. Soon she was the only one on stage, the littlest of the little girls, as all the others filed away into the dark distance. The cheaters gone, the perfumed ones, the plumed ones, the ones with the daintiest shoes. Alone, she looked even more beautiful. Alone, she flowered. Stretching out her entire body into another beautiful motion, she began where the other girls had left. People would not forget the little girl for the next week, the next year, years – she moved so nimbly. Why, her tiny apsara feet would not touch the ground! The technician fell from his station on the first floor, enraptured. Everyone was ever so violently in love, even those who had always claimed their little spaces. Violently, they were all in love with an eight year old, an eight year old who winded like the wind and the flowers, speechlessly, towards the end of her little trance.

It is hard to explain – people, for once, liked being in love. They did not want the music to stop. Ever. The little girl was obliged to dance over and over, always beginning with the same gesture, not knowing how else to dance, repeating everything carefully, confused, drowning in her own motion till she couldn’t anymore.

She shuddered. She fell.

The audience couldn’t take the fall. They all got up together, they left, pained.

When she left the stage, it was still dark. Even the spotlight looked tired and faded. All the girls had vanished, so had the technicians. The little girl thought she ought not to be scared. Only that her feet were swollen. There were pins on the floor, and the floor was sprinkled with blood. It wasn’t that easy anymore. She just had to scream.

At last.

Someone had laid a trap for the little girl. Even her parents hadn’t come.