There once was a young man who cursed the world with a snowflake. He didn’t intend to curse the world at all; it happened very innocently.
It was early in March. The weather was warming and the last of the snow was finally melting away. He stood looking out of his window at the shrinking patches of gritty white, and uttered the words he would come to regret.
“When the last of the snow is gone, the Winter will be over.”
Now, I realize that it doesn’t sound like much of a curse. But a curse it was, and this is what happened.
The morning after he spoke those fateful words, he awoke and arose to prepare for a new day. Remembering what he had said, he went to stand at the window, confident that this was the day that the winter would go. He could see no white on the colors outside and he was glad.
He was almost too glad to notice the single snowflake resting stubbornly on his shaded windowsill.
But it did catch his eye, crystalline and cold, sitting there on the dark sill. He put his thumb on it, crushed it, melted it. Then he proceeded with his day sometimes fancifully thinking to himself that he had vanquished the winter.k
The day came and went, not a snowflake or ice crystal in sight. You could sense the anticipation in everything, as if all of nature was holding its breath, expecting the arrival of Spring.
But it didn’t come.
The young man went back to his room that night and looked out the window. He was disappointed. Where was the reward for his heroic deed of the morning? He laughed at his own presumption. Then his eye was drawn to a small reflection of moonlight, a speck of luminescence — the snowflake lying on his windowsill.
It seemed strangely similar to the one that he had crushed that very morning. The creature lay in exactly the same place. It even looked the same, though he knew that every snowflake must be unique. “So, you’re the reason,” he said, and crushed this snowflake with a finger.
By morning, the spring had still not come and the snowflake was back on his windowsill.
Again and again the young man crushed it, melted it, blotted it away. But each morning it was back, and each morning the winter continued.
Weeks passed, then months. Still the world was a victim of his failure, lying under his curse, “When the last of the snow is gone, the winter will be over.” The summer came and went on the calendar, but the winter stayed in the world. It flourished again in its months and continued through the rest, one year, then two and three.
The snowflake on his shaded windowsill remained as he and the world withered under its weight.
Then one year, one day after sitting there with no hope, watching the cursed little snowflake clinging haughtily to his sill, cursing the world, a thought came to him. It was really more like a feeling that came over him, or an idea that wriggled its way from his heart.
Being careful, so as not to bruise it, or melt it, or crush it, the once young man lifted the snowflake from his cold windowsill and carried it out of his room. As the world lay cold and near death, he brought the snowflake outside, into the chill air, and raised his hand up into the last beam of sunlight.
As the light of the sun touched it, the snowflake crumbled, then dissolved, then evaporated into the air. The winter died. The sun filled the world with spring.
