Journey

It was unclear what woke him. It might have been the jittery motions of the bus, or the uninvited cold, or maybe he simply sensed that his stop was near. Opening his eyes, the familiar interior of the bus greeted him once again. Through the window, brooding clouds sulked in the melancholic sky, heavy with burden. Tightening the scarf around his neck, the boy prepared himself for the long walk ahead of him.

Stepping off the bus, the cold immediately rushed up to greet him, eagerly smothering him in its icy embrace. Burying his face deeper into the scarf, the boy trudged onwards. He had walked this path hundreds of times before, the sights and sounds a familiar blur in the background as an endless stream of Asian pop music flowed into his ears. It was just like any other day.

Something wet and cold suddenly landed on his nose. It landed again, this time on his cheek. He started to feel it in his hair, on the back of his hands. It had started to drizzle. Fishing around his bag, the boy felt for the comforting fabric of his umbrella. Silently thanking his foresight, the boy continued onwards under his new canopy of nylon.

Yet something was different today. This was no ordinary rain. The droplets had a cohesive feel to them, almost as if they were solid. As each one impacted the ground, it bounced a little, remaining intact for a brief second before disappearing. Like a thousand tiny comets, ice pellets began to fall all around him. It was like walking in the midst of a icy meteor shower. He felt that at that moment, all of his wishes would come true.

His surroundings suddenly became novel again, as if the falling sleet had shattered the monotony of familiarity. Everywhere he looked, the scenery appeared strange, unrecognisable. It was as if he had accidentally fallen asleep on the bus and had woken up in a completely foreign land. He craned his neck left and right, marveling at the magic happening all around him.

That was when he first noticed it. Amidst the curtain of falling ice, a barely perceptible fleck of pure white, gracefully descending from the sky on invisible wings. It was an unique individual. Unlike the graupel, it did not plummet blindly to its own demise. No, for a beautifully brief moment, it danced. Borne on some unseen current, it twisted and spun, momentarily spiraling upwards, soaring into the air, as if intent on returning to where ever it came from. It floated towards the ground, then leapt into the air once again, all of its limbs extended towards the sky. Finally, the snowflake came to rest at his feet, completely spent.