Work Text:
“It had been a glorious spring day - so glorious, in fact, that in parts of the world further north it would have undoubtedly been counted as a summer’s day - and the next promised to be equally glorious.
Spring had put on her fairest garments and decorated the world in flowers, and the children had been practicing their songs for the festival.
The explosion during the night was not the loudest that part of the world had ever heard - more than one war had rolled across the land - nor was the light that shone that night the brightest to have ever lit up the night.
And yet. And yet this was a different sort of fire, as gradually dawned on the men and women of the land, and the children did not get to sing their practiced songs as the world devolved into a fight to stop a disaster the likes of which they’d never known.
When it started to snow at dawn, nobody had the time to notice.
Not then.”
From the introduction to: “When the Snegurochka came to stay”, ed. May Flowers, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
***
The child was born in Winter.
If anybody had bothered to take a census, to count back the days, they would have known that she was - not the first child born after the snow settled, but the first child conceived on a Winter night, and not just in her tiny village just a few miles from where the soldiers guarded the forbidden area.
Her parents and grandparents stayed in their village. Others - many others - left. The fields lay snow-covered and unyielding, family farms abandoned, but some stayed in the village. The authorities made sure to stock the local shops with canned goods, and her father found a new job driving the rattling old aerosani bus that made its way across the snow to bring men to work at the power plant still lurking deep behind the fences.
Life went on. Somehow.
***
Izv Akad Nauk Ser Biol. Sep-Oct 1996;(5):569-78.
[The dissection of a Ukranian brown bear, with particular attention paid to the animal’s fat layers. ]
[Article in Russian]
V E Medvedev, S V Osokin, M A Serebriakov
PMID: 90048976Abstract: Detailed description of the results of a dissection of an estimated 5-year-old brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos), obtained by way of the local police force from poachers within the Localized Ice Age Zone. Possible explanations for the animal’s excellent condition and thick fat layer is discussed, including the possibility that it is not from the zone itself, but has wandered in across the border. This is deemed unlikely, as minute amounts of radioactivity is detected on the animal, consistent with what one must expect from an animal having lived its entire life not too far from the Restricted Zone.
***
The girl was raised in Winter.
She and her playmates knew a world of snowball fights and snowpeople, of skiing and ice skates and sleighs. Of watching the youths show off their new snow scooters, imported from the West, while the eccentric old man down the road had imported a round dozen pups from Greenland itself.
The children sometimes heard their elders’ sigh and long for things for which they had no frame of reference in their life, where the seasons were measured by the lengthening and shortening of the days and by the school year.
This was the world where the girl grew up, assisting with the unending work of maintaining the village houses against Winter, attending her school, and keeping her grandmother company in the evenings, more to make sure that the fire neither went out nor burned the house down.
“She sleeps,” the man who lived behind the oven told her one night, as she was feeding the fire, and she looked back, but her grandmother had not fallen asleep. “She sleeps,” the man insisted, “when she should not.”
But that was the last time she saw the tiny man anyway. Perhaps she’d grown too old or perhaps he too slept.
***
“... and in other news, a group of British hikers on holiday in Ukraine’s famous Winter Region came upon a macabre find yesterday. As their local guide brought them to their intended lunch spot at a site famous for its neolithic stones, the tourists were faced with the leftovers from a far less wholesome event: a dead lion was draped across the stones in a manner best described, according to Lucy Farnsworth, 37, as “depraved”. Ukraine authorities have identified the animal as an old circus lion reported missing two weeks ago, but as of yet they have no…”
***
The girl was sent away to study in Summer.
Her parents and her teacher saw her to the train station, repeating their promises that she’d love it outside, that she’d make new friends and learn so much, her grades were really far too good to stay in a place like this.
The train huffed and puffed and carried her away, across the fields of snow and then to the place where the snow melted away and the world was green and wrong, and the lakes and rivers were not frozen and easily walked across.
She endured the years to come. She did make new friends, as promised, though there was something alien about the people around her. They treated her well enough, her friends and fellow students and teachers, and yet…
But every year, without fail, as the days grew longer, days would come when the snow would melt and the ice would soften, and the world would dress up in all the wrong colours, and she was never able to quite properly articulate exactly how wrong it all was.
Some nights, when she was most distressed, she’d dream of a woman her own age, curled up in a tree, sleeping among the snow-covered branches, and she’d wake feeling calmer than she had in ages.
***
”It was during the Olympics, the first time I realized that there was something different - something weird - about the place I grew up in. I mean, when you’re a kid, the way things work, you think that’s how the world is everywhere, right? Everywhere had snow and ice. Of course they did. You might see stuff on tv, but - I mean. I remember watching a movie with dragons as a kid. TV wasn’t real.
I was 6 years old when the construction work started, all the open air skating arenas and ski jump ramps and bobsleigh tracks sprouting the way plants did in greenhouses. And then the people came, people from all over, and they were just - I mean, the sports people, they mostly knew what they were doing - dressing for the weather, judging the snow.
But the reporters! They did all sorts of ridiculous things, they kept tripping, they just - and they asked such weird questions. “Don’t you miss the warmth?” and I tried to explain to that one that no, because warmth was at home by the fireplace and at school if you got the good spot near the oven, or if you got into a really crazy snowball fight, and he didn’t seem to get it at all.”
“Voices from Winter: An Oral History of An Inexplicable Disaster”, Svetlana Alexievich
***
The woman came home to Winter.
Her diploma was packed in her bags as her Summer clothes were not. She exchanged hugs and tearful farewells with her friends at the train station, as well as never to be fulfilled promises of visits.
And then she went home.
She found work in a pharmacy in the new city they were building, far enough from the accident site to attract new inhabitants, but close enough that it could service the workers who went there still. It was a marvel, this city, or so people affirmed - architects and city planners had been called in from the highest north, from Scandinavia and Greenland and Canada, and the city they built was one of sloped roofs and covered pathways, a shelter and sheltered life.
It was a city with greenhouse parks untouched by snow.
She visited them only once.
Every day at the end of the work day she’d leave the city behind, covered the distance by bus and the last few miles by ski, until she came home to the village of her childhood. Smoke curled its way out of chimneys and snow covered the world and all was well in the world.
In her dreams, the woman turned over and blinked sleepily at the snow before her before settling back down.
***
”Welcome back to the seventh episode of this year’s season of “Winter Wonderland!" Last week we had to say goodbye to Tatiana, whose proud Russian ancestry sadly did not prove up to the week’s traditional challenge of sleigh steering. On the other hand Thurid wowed the audience and was awarded Ice Cube of the Week for the third time this season with her laid-back “it’s just like home” response to the absolutely authentic feast. But - can she handle this week’s challenge? Will Steve manage to keep his clothes on for an entire episode? Will Cheng finally succeed in lighting a fire? Let’s find out, and remember: it’s you, the audience, who decides who is cool and who needs to chill!”
***
The woman fell in love in Winter.
She had been back for a couple of years when the brothers returned to the farm that had once upon a time belonged to their family. Their parents had relocated away from Winter like so many others back then, but the brothers came back - drawn by the opportunities, they said, as they got to work restoring and rebuilding and turning the old farm into a cosy, modern bed & breakfast for the tourists.
The night they invited the entire village to come celebrate the newly opened enterprise was the night she heard them play.
It was the night they heard her sing, sing like her old grandmother had taught her, free like the flying birds of prey.
They started playing together after that, practising until the tunes ran smooth and wild like the rivers had not in years.
On the nights they’d played together she’d go home and fall into a deep and dream-filled sleep. In the mornings it seemed to her that she could almost recall something about a woman sitting in a tree, spinning…
Waiting.
***
Everwinter Ski Resort and Spa ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Great Vacation with only minor flaws ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Everwinter Ski has snow guarantee and man, does it deliver. When you get tired of the slopes, you can enjoy after ski parties in the cozy bars or take a swim in the pool in the tropical greenhouse housing the spa. Really, my only true complaint was the food - I wasn’t expecting anything Michelin starred, but it’d have been nice if there was something - anything - that hadn’t been frozen or came from a can, you know?Worst vacation ever ⭐ ⭐
The hotel is nice enough with all the amenities you might expect from a 3-starred resort. Unfortunately, its history dating back pre-2k is starting to show and the entire place could really do with a makeover. That said, I might have been more willing to give it a better rating, except the spa staff are not the least bit service-minded, and if you - like me - has been dragged along by a family of ski fanatics, the only reasonably entertaining offering is the arranged day-trips to Chernobyl.
***
The woman sang in Winter.
It was far from the first time they played before an audience. They’d been doing so for a few years, they were a well-established name on the local music scene, they even had a couple of videos brimming with Slavic mysticism and snow gathering hits on Youtube.
It was the middle brother who suggested the venue. She was the last one to agree - the brothers might be from a local family, but they had the outsider’s unhealthy fascination with that particularly forbidding part of Winter.
The night before she dreamt of the woman. Or perhaps of an eagle, spreading its wings before its first flight.
They drove to the chosen venue in the car the youngest brother was always tinkering with, affectionately named Il Tempo Gigante. It rolled through the March forest, patches of dirt showing between piles of white snow, and past the checkpoints.
They lit a bonfire by their chosen venue - with wood brought from the outside, of course - and started with a couple of warm-up tunes as people started coming out of the woods, white suits bulging with warmer winter clothing underneath.
And then it happened.
She opened her mouth and Sang. It was not a song she knew - oh, she quickly recognized the general type of song - the people of Winter had long since abandoned the springtime traditions as being ridiculous these days, but her grandmother had taught her several of the traditional songs.
Not this one.
And yet it flowed from her lips - “Oh Spring song, where have you spent your Winter?” - and the music flowed from the brothers’ instruments. And it all rose and it rose, and in front of them the crowd had started dancing in earnest, pulling off the protective suits as if they didn’t matter, as if nothing mattered except the Song - the Song and the rhythm and the call.
She leaned her head back and parted her lips, opened her throat and let the white song reach the skies, a wordless cry expressing things through her that she was utterly powerless to stop.
The world froze.
And then a large bird of prey landed on her raised hand, eyes warm and brown like fertile soil ready for the sowing, and the song abruptly let go of her.
She was vaguely aware of people collapsing around her, and then the bird took off, and she felt herself collapse as well, feeling like a puppet with her last string cut.
Somewhere, in the silence after the Song, she could hear a noise like a dripping faucet.
***
Prypiat, Kiev, Ukraine
Saturday, March 20th 2021, cloudy with a chance of snow, temperatures between -6°C and -7°C, 87% humidity, wind 5 m/s NE
Sunday, March 21st 2021, rainy, temperatures between 3°C and 6°C, 81% humidity, wind 5.9 m/s SW
***
The woman died in Summer.
The decades stretched out between then and now, long and ever-changing with the seasons.
Every year as the days start to lengthen, she’d catch herself watching the snow like a hawk. She remembered being a child, watching the adults - especially the elders - sending longing, hopeful glances at the snow piles as the equinox came and went, until finally, finally letting go of their hopes for yet another year - and she felt like a vicious parody of them.
Every year her fears came alive to the drip drip drip of melting snow.
She tried travelling - seeking the ever-cold parts of the world, visiting the high mountains and the furthest north and south. She spent a season working in a tiny post office / gift shop with only penguins for neighbours and another temping at a pharmacy in Nuuk. But her Winter ever escaped her.
Eventually she gave up.
Eventually she came home. And lived. Even with the annual disappointment of the melting snow.
The local Runtato officiated her funeral at her granddaughter’s insistence. After all, she argued, while her grandmother had never officially followed the Native Faith, it was known among all who mattered that it had been she who had sung back the Spring, and he had agreed.
They planted snowdrops on her grave.