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SNOW IN MIDGAR
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It never snows in Midgar.
It is just not warm enough.
The smoke gushes in dark swaths from the reactors’ chimneys. Day in, day out. Even at night.
All year long.
A star rarely gets lost in the smoky grey sky. And if it does, it is quickly swallowed by clouds.
Only rain falls on the asphalt, occasionally. Flows into the gutters of the upper city and through rusty pipes down to the slums. To artificial wells, whose water makes people sick.
They all shall freeze.
It shall get clammy and cold up there on the plate. Slippery and slick. The wind shall sting the peoples’ eyes and the snow shall extinguish the reactors and force the world to a standstill. Only then…
Only then will the people below feel like they have it better.
‘And a single snowflake shall find its way down here… And lay down on one of my flowers that only bloom here, near me… All year round.’
Aerith turns her back on the flowers. She needs to go to the well, then water the flowers and repot them. Then she will haul her cart outside into the city as usual.
As usual, she will strive for a bit of color, for filling the city with life… Just a tiny bit. A tiny bit of joy for the people – Because there is nothing more important.
As usual. As it used to be, as…
As…
As if nothing had happened.
She grabs a bucket and steps out of the church into the street and sees a grey sky far in the distance, barely visible behind all the houses, just below the black edge of the plate.
It never snows in Midgar. And even if it did...
Down here in the slums, the sky will forever be steel.
Aerith has long gotten used to it. She doesn’t know any different… And she doesn’t want it any other way. The sky scares her. Still, despite it all, the plate seems like a shield, a protection from the far too endless vastness of the skies above.
She moves on, past sparsely decorated barracks, illuminated by flickering fairy lights.
Far too vivid it is, the contrast between poverty and misery and these cheap Christmas decorations. Inappropriate. Ridiculous. The work of a cynic. Sad… So very sad.
She keeps going, but she can’t suppress the bitter thoughts resurfacing from deep within her. Everything seems sad to her these days. She trudges from now to then. From here to there. From one day to the next, caught in the desolation and monotony of her everyday life.
Even now. On this day. Even in this most contemplative time of the year. Or maybe that’s exactly the reason: In times of collective happiness, people can see it quite clearly: Their own loneliness. The tragedy their life has become. The bittersweet memories of better times, nothing but shards on the floor… Never to be restored.
The suicide rate is particularly high at Christmas time.
Aerith reaches the well. Fetches the water. Unceremoniously, nearly mechanically, she pulls the bucket from the depths. People come along sporadically, wishing a Merry Christmas. She returns the kindness, but from her mouth, it is but an empty phrase.
Nothing more. Not for her.
On her way back to the church, Aerith notices the flowers adorning some of the windowsills along the street. Standing tall and proud like pillars of liveliness, waging a silent battle against the omnipresent decay all around them.
Her flowers. Her hope.
She reaches the church and waters her flowers. She carefully loosens their roots from the earth and plants them inside her cart one by one. At this time of year, the demand is very high – Many people approach her to buy a flower or two.
She could really make a lot of money if she wanted to. But instead of raising the prices, she lowers them.
HE would probably declare her crazy. He would tell her she was missing out on a big deal. But that’s not her goal at all and she would tell him just that, earning a blank look and a shrug before a warm smile would spread across his face and…
The cart is full of flowers now and Aerith struggles to pull it outside. The wood creaks. The tires screech and sometimes they lock up, but this is perfectly normal and Aerith hardly notices it. The cart has served her well so far. It-
A dangerous crack echoes across the street. Aerith looks around and realizes that an axle is broken – The cart lies lopsided and flowers and potting soil alike tumble to the ground.
Aerith just stands there, motionless, and stares at her broken cart.
She suddenly feels numb inside. Frozen. And when she starts to tremble, she barely notices it.
People pass her by, but she doesn’t see them. She feels lost. Like a piece of herself has been broken along with the axle. Her duty. Her hope.
“Can I help you?“
It takes a few seconds for the voice to reach her ears. Slowly she takes her eyes off the cart and sees a man walking towards her. He is tall and black of hair. He wears a suit.
He is one of… them…
Aerith looks at him with displeasure. She says nothing when he reaches her side.
“That doesn’t look too good.”, he states calmly as he squats down to examine the cart. “The construction has to be completely revised. The wooden boards were probably brittle from the beginning. “
‘…At least someone has bothered to build a flower cart for me at all’, Aerith thinks with bitterness.
“Come on.”, the man says and stands up again. “We need to get this thing back to the church… Can you fetch me a rope?”
Their eyes meet and there is nothing but sincere concern in his dark irises. Aerith knows him. His name is Tseng.
She sighs and closes her eyes for just a moment, trying to regain control of herself. “Of course. “, she says and calmly returns to the church, fetches the rope and brings it to Tseng, who somehow manages to knot the broken parts together so the cart can be pulled again. He even helps with picking up the flowers from the ground and in no time at all, they have dragged the cart back inside the church.
“Thank you…”, Aerith says, eyes lowered to the ground. She dislikes the fact that she has accepted help from a Turk. But alone she would never have…
She wants Tseng to leave her alone.
But instead of leaving, he sits down in one of the front pews and stares at her field of flowers.
“It’s beautiful.“, he says after a while, his voice soft and barely audible. “It’s so…“
He shakes his head and looks around, finding Aerith’s gaze again and holding it. There is something in his eyes. Something intense, nearly urgent. She feels the weight of it, burning on his soul as he struggles for the right words… And Aerith is suddenly afraid.
‚Don’t say it‘, she silently screams at him, hands clenching into fists. ‘Don’t you dare. You don’t have the right to. Nothing you could say would change anything-‘
“I’ll come over tomorrow and fix the cart.”
It is not what he really wants to say and they both know it. It’s a matter of courtesy. Because it’s Christmas. And because he feels guilty.
What he really wants to say is this: He is sorry. About the thing with Zack. That he’s dead. That he could never deliver those damned letters. And that…
That Aerith is so sad. This, he regrets most of all.
All of this is reflected in his eyes, if only for a little moment. And then he gets up and leaves the church and Aerith is alone again. Alone with her ghosts and her flowers.
When she finally starts moving, Tseng is long gone. She is on her way to the flower field when she notices a sparkle from the corner of her eye. She turns her head and sees a globe lying on the front pew, its transparent surface reflecting the light falling through the churches’ tall stained-glass windows.
Aerith picks it up and tentatively turns it in her hands. It is filled with a clear liquid, white flakes covering the bottom, framing the miniature image of a city.
Aerith sinks down on the bench. She shakes the globe and watches the white flakes scatter around in the water, dancing wildly before slowly moving back down to the ground, nearly weightless. Only then, she notices the dedication, engraved in the sphere’s bottom side.
“Merry Christmas, Aerith. – Tseng“.
Such a small sentence, apparently nothing more than a phrase. And yet…
Aerith doesn’t know why her vision starts to blur, wide eyes filling with tears, transforming the snow globe into an abstract work of art made of glittering lights and white flakes.
“Zack…“, Aerith whispers into the silence.
(…I have twenty-three tiny wishes… But you probably won’t remember them all, so I put them all together into one…)
“Zack, I…“
(…I’d like to spend more time with you…)
„I can’t do this anymore, I… I need to...”
Finally, the tears are flowing free. For the first time in a very long while.
„I need to let you go…”
And suddenly, everything becomes bearable. Like a weight lifted off her chest, letting her breathe again.
A strange kind of relief takes hold of Aerith, enveloping her like a cool blanket. Soothing her pain with every falling tear.
Perhaps she will be able to leave the past behind. Eventually. HE would have wanted her to. She has no doubt about it.
For the very first time, snow falls in Midgar… If only inside a small glassy sphere – A present, which might have been given to her out of courtesy alone, but which might…
…also mean a new beginning.
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THE END