Falling

I was sitting in a cloud once again, in a frozen suspension, when I felt the familiar sensation of freefall.

As I was twisting and crashing toward the earth, I remembered the first time I fell from the sky. Since then, I’ve realized the life of a snowflake can end in one hundred different ways.

The piercing wind blew through me, and I could see the ground getting closer. I smelled the cold, sharp scent of pine trees and I thought about my younger self. In the past I feared the fall, I wanted the uncertainty to stop, to be still. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to love falling.

I realized the wind was no longer washing over me, I was motionless. I looked around and saw dark, angry cliffs in every direction. I had landed on a mountain, where the snow never melts.

It hit me in pulses of dread. I was never going to leave this place. My existence was perpetually static. I would never meet another fish in the depths of the sea, or another playful fox in the forest. I would never again be made into a snowman by a joyful child, or admired by a curious photographer's lens.

I waited on the mountain with the others for years. Unlike me, they were content; they were tired, but I wasn’t done yet. I wanted to see more.

While I sat on that peak, I looked back on my existence; the thousands of years and thousands of lives I’d lived still didn’t feel like enough.

I remembered my worst landing and my shortest life. I had fallen on a scorching campfire in a vast forest, and I was sent back to my prison in the sky without ever touching land.

I also recalled my best landing when I dropped onto the eyelash of a young fox. He ran through the trees and leapt over fallen branches. For a while, I got to be part of his world, the welcoming world of the earth.

I never let go of those memories, though they grew less vivid. On the last day of my third year, I felt hopeful. Then everything went dark.

My saviour was the sole of a hiker’s boot. His steps lifted me off the cold rock and just as quickly stomped me back into it, solidifying my refuge in his tread. He trekked his way down the mountain, unknowingly carrying me with him.

After a few days, the air became warmer. The hiker shook off his boots, and I landed in a small puddle. Little did he know, he had given me another life.