Dancing in the Snowglobe

Dancing in the Snowglobe

“You must be the prettiest girl in the world,” muttered the boy, in the sort of harsh whisper you use when you're saying a secret that you hold so close to your heart to the point where saying it out loud scares you.

“You think the Snowglobe is the whole world?” she whispered back, realizing the importance the boy had poured into his words; she was being careful- or kind.

“Well,” he said, readjusting his legs under him- he vaguely regretted telling her already, “yes, actually.”

She put her fingers up to his face in the dark, just to make sure she still knew where he was. He was crying.

“Are you crying?”

“Weeping.”

“Quit being so dramatic-” She took his hands to her face; they were much softer than his. She wasn't crying. “Here.”

He moved his fingers over her face the way a musician feels their instrument, carefully, like he'd done it a million times. He had.

“You are the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“What do I look like?” she asked, in the calm, curious tone of a girl who knew exactly what she looked like.

“You look soft, in the prettiest damn way, like some sort of lost butterfly- or more like a gorgeous girl who lives in the dark,” he took a deep breath, “your eyes are the nicest shade of purple-”

“What does purple look like?” she asked. He hadn't told this story before.

“It's the color of dancing,” he told her, “when we dance, it swirls around the world-”

“-the Snowglobe,” she interjected.

“Yes, when we dance, the Snowglobe turns purple, and your hair is golden. That means it shines the way dreams do.”

“I like dreams.”

“Other than that, you look like me but better.” He stood up and grabbed her hands. She stood up too. “And shorter.”

“Ha ha,” she said sarcastically, springing up to dance with him, “sounds wonderful- is it all true?”

“It is if you let it be,” he said. They danced.

Adam and Eve

“Tell me a story,” she said, through sleepy eyes and tired ideas- she was lying on him, and he was on the bed. It was big enough for the both of them to lie side by side, but she liked hearing his heartbeat- and he liked her weight- it had a tangibility to it that nearly nothing else did.

He put his hand on her back and felt her breathe in and out a few times, “There were two people, like us, except they were both absolutely gorgeous-”

“Aren't we?” she cut him off, moving forward so that their faces were right on top of each other.

“You are,” he responded, but there was a catch in his throat, like he had forgotten something important.

She thought for a long time, or what felt like a long time, then finally said, right into his ear in the calmest voice, “If I'm gorgeous, then you are too.” She moved to the other ear: “I've decided.”

“Thanks,” he said. Quietly, into the dark instead of towards her. He clearly didn't believe it, but- as always- it was the sentiment that mattered, “so these two people, they lived in an old world where you could go outside and see streaks of purple everywhere- everyone danced all the time back then.”

“Everyone?” She was astounded. “That sounds lovely.”

“It was.”

“What would they listen to?” she asked, half asleep already.

The boy began singing a lullaby that he had sung a thousand times before. It was one of only two lullabies he knew- it was in a language that the girl didn't know- something softer and more complicated than what they usually used to talk in. It was a sad song, but a good one to fall asleep to.

Take a Drag

The Music sang to the pair in their room, and they danced, and they were beautiful. By some magic, they knew where each other were; they spun and swirled around the whole world, depositing purple streaks and golden winds, and they sang into each other's faces. They sang songs about everything.

When the song stopped, they fell into a heap of each other, a sprawling mess of limbs, breathing too hard.

“Who were they?”

She took three deep breaths in a row, then, still a little short of breath, said, “The Magicians. Tell me about them.”

“They were magicians, obviously,” he began, “and good friends of Adam and Eve in the old world. They used to make music for them.”

“It's beautiful; I like the way it makes me feel.”

“That's because they sing about everything- love, life, sadness, and sex.”

“Is that what it takes to be beautiful?”

He had to think about that- let it run through his mind at mach speed and then come back, “No, those are just beautiful things to sing about.”

They got up and kept dancing, like it was all that mattered, and The Music sang to them-

The Boy

The girl traced her fingers over the boy. This is what she found:

The girl started with his face- she had to brush the hair out of his face first, they both had a lot of hair covering their faces. Then she found an eye, and another! Two eyes! A nose and a mouth, too! This boy was covered with things. She continued across his body, finding things of all manner, ears, a neck, a torso. She really became excited when she found his arms and legs, which meant he was just like her.

Once she had completed her inspection, she raised her hands before her and clapped.

“Right, what's all this about?” asked the boy.

“I was just checking to make sure it's all there.”

“Oh, thank you.” He didn't move an inch. “Well, is it?”

“Yes, yes, very much so, all there.”

“That's relieving to hear.”

The Sun

“The Sun? What do you mean?”

He was proud of this and launched into the story almost too fast: “The Sun was the last Polish Saint, and when he realized the cruel lord was going to fire them all, he set aside as many of us as he could to protect us. He was different from most of the saints- he could make colors that were so bright people could physically see each other, as if they were dreaming the same dream at the same time, all while wide awake.”

“Wow,” she said, “that's the kind of thing a Polish boy could do if he never had sex?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ooh la la.” She rolled over so they were closer, and he turned to face her on the floor. “That sounds magical. Too bad for poor little you, huh?”

And The Music sang to them about faces, about longing. About wanting to really see someone.

She really did.

Snow

“-that's why I call it the Snowglobe, we're living in it, and it seems like a whole world, but I know there's something outside.”

“Does it honestly matter?” he asked. The two lay on the floor with their heads next to each other, but their bodies in opposite directions- so they could still be face to face- even in the dark, that felt important.

“Immeasurably.”

“You know what snow is, right?” he asked.

“What do you think it is?”

“It all goes back to Adam and Eve,” he began, storytelling, “snow was their sin- it’s why we lost our colors- it was something they did that was so incomprehensible that I can't even explain it.”

“Is that true?”

“Everything is true if you want it to be.”

She took his head in hers and kissed him, then kissed each of his eyes. “I don't want that story to be true then; I think snow was sex.”

It was a damn good story, and the boy wished he had thought of it.

“Then you're saying we really live in the sex-globe?”

She could tell he was smiling again, “naturally.”

All good books.

“How come you know all these stories?” she asked one day while the boy was attempting to balance on his hands- she waited a second and heard the distinct thud that indicated he had not yet figured it out.

“I think,” he stood up and took her hands, “that really fucking hurts, but I think I always knew them.”

“They knew everything, didn't they?” she said to him, after dancing, “The Magicians, I mean.”

“Of course they did, all good magicians read good books-”

“-and all good are about everything,” she finished his line, “I've heard you say it a thousand times, but it doesn't mean anything to me.”

“Oh well,” he said in mock dissatisfaction, “let me tell you again.”

He kissed her. She was all over him. She didn't get it.

Happy

“If I could do anything I wanted, I'd bring back the sun,” she said, “so we could see each other and the world could be beautiful again.”

“Hmm,” he traced his fingers down her arm and laced them into hers, "I guess if I could do anything I wanted, I would kiss you.”

This sidetracked the pair, but all good books are about everything, so here is where they ended up:

“No, come on,” she said, pulling back and grabbing both sides of his head, “isn't there anything you want to do so badly it aches?”

“I guess,” he began and he put his hands on her head, then let them drop down to the space between her shoulders and neck, “I guess,” he began again letting his hands fall to her lap as hers fell to his, “I guess I'd like to meet The Magicians,” he decided finally, just as their hands were getting to know how to love each other.

The Girl

In the dark, the boy ran his fingers over the girl, careful not to disturb any delicate part of the poetry of her being; he was simply documenting, filing her away in his own mind, for later, so she could exist in his mind as one of his stories.

Grasshopper

Some nights the boy couldn't sleep and he would sing the second lullaby he knew to himself in a hushed voice- to not wake the girl, it was a song about everything in the world- colors, love, life, sex, dancing, it was the best song he knew- but he never sang it to the girl because it was also about bad things that he wanted to protect her from knowing about, at least for a little while longer. The song was also about lust, war, murder, rape, pain, death, longing, and capitalism. It almost scared him sometimes when he sang it- but it was definitely the best song he knew.

Deep down, some part of him told him he should sing the song for the girl, that he was being selfish by keeping it to himself, even if it was scary; she deserved to know.

More than anything, the boy was terrified by the prospect that the song confirmed that the Snowglobe wasn't the whole world.

Suddenly, he heard it- a skittering sound, he had heard it before, but always tried to ignore it. ‘I'm making it up,” he would tell himself, ‘nothing is making that noise,’ he would scream into his own head, ‘I'm just mishearing The Music.’

Usually, when he did that, the noise went away, but this time it only got louder and closer. The boy was so scared he thought he might pee himself. The Music had come to a quiet point, and he needed it to come back- anything but that terrible, wretched, skittering noise.

Just half a minute, he had to make it half a minute for the song to get loud again, and he could forget about the noise, but it seemed almost as if the song was getting quieter and the noise louder and louder. He needed to pee so badly he thought he might die. As much as he was terrified, he extracted himself from beneath the girl and crawled to the bathroom.

Just as he was about to get there, the song came back on, loud as can be, something touched his hand- something that wasn't the girl, and he shrieked- all at once. He screamed and screamed and started flailing around and falling all over himself- something crunched beneath his hand, and the girl woke up.

“What's wrong?” She yelled, “Are you okay? Are you safe?”

The Music sang on-

“Ye-yeah, I am, um, yeah, I am,” he stuttered, “safe as can be, just, uh, a- well, it's a little embarrassing, but I had a nightmare and I- see, the thing is I kinda flipped out.”

“Oh,” she laughed a little, and the sound made him feel much safer, “well, come back to bed- I miss you.”

“Right away, just go back to sleep- I'll be there,” he promised. He still needed the bathroom, but he had bigger matters right now.

Once the girl's breathing returned to normal, the boy turned his attention to the thing in his hand. It was small- actually, it made him embarrassed to be scared by something so small, its dead carcass lay comfortably in the palm of his hand. It had a tough exterior, it was segmented into pieces, he could count a head and arms, and more than two legs. After further investigation, he found that it had wings tucked away.

The thing was definitely dead, that wasn't an issue; the issue was that it had somehow gotten into the boy's dark world- a world meant just for him and the girl- and it had come from outside, he was sure of it.

‘You should not be here,’ thought the boy, as hard as he could towards the thing in his hand, it did not, however, respond- being dead and all, ‘you should not be here at all.’

‘I need to get rid of you,’ he thought to it, ‘she shouldn't have to see you,’ but some hidden small part of his brain was whispering to him: ‘you don't want her to see it, you want to keep on dreaming forever- you know you have to wake up some day-’ ‘-shut up,’ he interrupted himself, ‘this thing is foreign and dangerous, I need to get rid of it,’ he took it out of his waistband and felt its fragile body, cracked through the center where the weight of his body had been put on it when he was spooked, it was leaking goop. ‘You want to get rid of it,’ he thought to himself. Shushing the thoughts of doubt, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes hard, not that it made things any more or less dark; it was an instinct. He lifted the thing above his head and dropped it in his mouth. He chewed once and swallowed fast- it was gross and crunchy.

He went to the bathroom.

“There's only room for one boy who leaks goop in the world,” he said out loud.

“Hm?” murmured the girl in her sleep.

“Oh, nothing. Do you know what a grasshopper is? They come from the jungle.”

“No… confusing Polish boy… sleep time…” she whispered, mostly to herself.

He went back to the bed and tied his body back to hers. He kissed her on the head and said: “You'd hate grasshoppers, they're gross-”

“Hm? What's that?”

“An animal from outside.”

“Oh… whatever, tell me in the morning; I'm tired.”

The boy lay awake till the girl had finished sleeping. ‘Morning’ really just meant later. How was he going to explain all of this to her?

The Music sang and sang.

The Sun

In the morning, they found that the walls of the Snowglobe were very easy to break. So they left. All at once, the boy found that every story he had ever told had been wrong. He had tried to invent a new world within the dark world for the girl. He had missed everything important somehow. The light was beautiful. More beautiful than all his stories. Proper magic.

After sufficient uncomfortable blinking, the girl shrieked, “Your face!” and jumped on him in joy.

The boy's eyes burned with purple; the sun was so much brighter than he had ever said it was. It was intoxicating.

'She is the prettiest girl in the world,’ thought the boy.

He believed it. It was true.