Stories from the sky

Chapter 3 - The Loneliness

"It's still definitely there."

There once was a polar bear, wandering in the deep snow at the foot of a mountain. He had been walking for a long time, almost in a trance, and had put many thousand miles behind him. Always wandering, always alone. This time was no different.

It was early and the sun was high on the sky with its warming light. It was gazing down at our dear polar bear when he got himself quite the surprise. A lump of snow fell from the mountain and almost hit him, falling right before his eyes. He jumped back as fast as he could and froze for an instant in shock. After he collected himself again he went to inspect what was now a snow pile half the height of him.

He figured that there wasn't anything interesting about it and just sat down and stared at the horizon towards the way he was heading in the first place. His heart sunk in his chest.

There were still many miles to go. Alone.

As time passed by, he didn't move much except to look up at the sky with a wondering gaze just to look back at the snow pile. He had always been alone and because of that he had no idea what he was feeling, this empty feeling. He looked around some more and suddenly an idea came to his mind.

He quickly got on his feet and ran off before the idea was forgotten. He collected another bunch of snow and pushed it towards the little lump that had fallen earlier. He gathered snow for a while until he had made big pile. He then sat down and began to form the snow into a snowman-like shape.

First the big round head that made the whole thing shrink down a few inches. Afterwards he took a smaller lump of snow and placed it right in the middle to make it look like snout. As he built the figure up with thick snow he thought about how it would be if he was no longer alone. What would happen?

The lump of snow was now a smaller replica of himself and as the day went by, he sat down next to with the biggest smile he had ever had - at least as far as he could remember - he starred at the sky as the sun was setting and made everything around him a warm orange. Even though the snow was cold, he felt the warmth that he had missed so badly at the beginning of the day. Maybe the warmth came from the feeling and the deception that he wasn't alone to experience this beautiful sunset.

He put his paw around the shoulders of the snow bear that he had made (and spent an entire day on) and in that moment he realised; The shape of happiness might resemble glass. Even though you don't usually notice it, it's still definitely there. You merely have to change your point of view slightly and then that glass will sparkle when it reflects the light. I doubt that anything else could argue its own existence more eloquently.