SNOW
hardy jones
She, being from the tropics and having seen the Olympic Winter Games on her village’s TV, named her only child Snow. She had never been in snow and Snow had never been in snow, so it became the village’s – whose name is not pertinent and is difficult to pronounce – one desire to get Snow in snow. This cause was helped along by Snow’s grandparent the village leader, who each year after Snow’s birth saved part of the village’s profit from its harvest of mangoes, tamarinds, lychees, papayas, pineapples, and rice to pay for Snow’s trip to be in snow.
The grandparent and the rest of the village could not decide where the best snow resided for their Snow. The Himalayans were suggested, but that place, the villagers heard, had the abominable Snowman, and no one, especially she and the grandparent, wanted Snow to be taken by an evil Snowman. She, after the others had reached their wits ends, thumbed through the atlas and found the perfect place: Iceland. She remembered the Winter Games had ice-skating, ice hockey, and the luge and bobsledding were conducted on ice; ice, she concluded, must be a requirement to have snow, and a place named after ice would have snow for Snow.
After six transfers and twenty-seven hours in planes, Snow was in snow. Snow froze Snow’s mouth, so Snow didn’t like snow. Snow decided that snow was not Snow, and that hating snow, Snow did not hate Snow, but hated snow.
Hardy Jones
http://www.cameron.edu/~hjones/
The Ballad of the Sad Café
Carson McCullers