I dreamt last night that I was Jack Frost. I came to this world because my own had been destroyed. While I was here I found work as an actor in an upcoming play. I was cast as Jack Frost.
They tried to tell me how to move, how to speak, what accent he would have. I listened and obliged. Smile and nod. Smile and nod.
I noted how cruel they saw me for, in the play, I was to be the villain. Their story told that my home had been destroyed so I came to this world and opened a street cart to sell brightly colored snow cones made from the magical snow of my world. Whenever a human consumed the snow it turned them into fairies and, therefore, my slaves.
I chuckled at the nonsense of it all. Of course, eating magical snow would certainly not turn one into a fairy; fairies are created carefully by the Builder one by one, just like me. I would not rule them for they are my own kind.
I would pat the small pouch at my side and chuckle at their ignorance. You see, my pouch held the last few snowflakes of my once frosty world; made with my own two hands, chipped from the fractured light of a thousand glittering moons. They were pure, beautiful and bright. They were the last pieces of my home, precious and few.
Opening night I took their notes, listened calmly to instructions, allowed them to poke and prod me into their image of who I was. The curtains opened and the stage was mine.
I bickered with a passer-by, like was scripted, then took my precious bag of snowflakes and emptied them carefully onto the cart. There they glittered brighter than diamonds in the stage lights. The actors were stunned by their beauty.
"Come," I said softly, taking one's hand. "Come, and see." I brought her to the thick, glittering snow and let her stoop to peer into its loveliness. "This is the most special snow," I whispered. "Chipped from the light of a thousand shattered moons. My home." I caught her tears before they could touch my precious snow and she looked up at my icy blue eyes.
"I came here because I have nowhere else to go." I could feel their eyes upon me as I showed them my true face. Sad, lost, longing. Pale and gentle blue, their eyes traveled my fairy form. Wings like icicles pierced my back, chipped and broken. A tear traced my frosty cheek and floated to the floor, a lone glittering snowflake.
I cupped her hands, "Will you carry my snow?" She nodded, frightened and unsure of what responsibility she had just agreed to. I placed a small handful of shining snow in her palm. "On the first snow, release it into the wind for me."
More hands outstretched to me and I filled them with the dwindling memories of my home. And then it was gone. The night was over and I faded into the streetlights to wander and wait for winter.
The weather grew colder. I wandered fields of some far-away prairie. Leaves fell from trees and the mornings began to glitter with frost, but not my frost.
And then the clouds moved in one blustery, windy day. I crept up to the window and pressed my nose to the glass. She was there, waiting for snow. She could no longer see me, I had faded from her world too much, but in her hands was a jar, glittering with the light of thousand moons. Her eyes were tired but she waited, I lay my head on the sill and breathed.
A single, pure, fluffy snow flake drifted down and settled on the tip of my nose. I smiled.
"Jack?" I met her eyes as she stood in her door, startled to see me looking so grim. I smiled wearily again and nodded. She stepped down, barefoot on the frosty earth, and lifted the little jar. A breath of wind blew and my snowflakes tumbled out into the air.
She smiled as she watched the snow dance around her and turned to see my approval but I had been swept along in the current of my fluttering flakes. Alive and new again.
The rest of my snow found its way to me many months later. Seated comfortably on the crescent moon above the peaks of snow-capped mountains I gathered them into my pouch and held them close to my frosty heart.
"Welcome home," I whispered softly and drifted off to sleep.
