☃️ Snow Lion 🦁
Software Contractor

“The Snow That Remembered”… Alice had never seen snow behave politely before. In winter, it usually arrived with all the manners of an impatient guest, flinging itself against the windows and hiding the garden path. But this snow waited in little white heaps beside the road through the Lake District, as though expecting someone to introduce it. “It is shy,” said a robin wearing a silver waistcoat. “Snow can’t be shy,” Alice replied. “It can, if it has forgotten where it came from.” Alice thought that was an odd thing to say, but she had learned that in Curioser Countries, the strangest sentences often turned out to be perfectly sensible by teatime. The hills rose around her, green at their feet and white upon their shoulders. Windermere lay so still that the clouds had become uncertain whether they belonged in the sky or the water. As she crossed an old stone bridge, Alice noticed that no footprints remained behind her. “Someone is sweeping them away,” she said. “No,” answered the robin. “The mountain is reading them.” “Reading them?” “Every traveller writes upon the earth. Most people write with their boots. The wisest write with their wondering.” Alice looked back again. The path was perfectly smooth. “If the mountain has read my footsteps,” she asked, “what did they say?” The robin fluttered onto the bridge rail. “They said, ‘Here walks a girl who asks questions before deciding what the answers ought to be.’ “Mountains enjoy that sort of thing.” At that moment, a snowflake drifted gently onto Alice’s glove. Instead of melting, it unfolded itself into the tiniest paper map she had ever seen. “Where does this lead?” she whispered. “To yesterday,” replied the robin. “I’ve already been there.” “Have you? Most people only remember yesterday. Very few ever visit it.” The map folded itself closed again and became an ordinary snowflake. Alice laughed. “I don’t believe maps can be snow.” “Then you’ve never met winter in the Lake District.” The robin bowed. “Come along. Before sunset, the hills exchange all their shadows. If we’re late, we’ll have to climb the wrong mountain.” Alice hurried after him, for that sounded exactly the sort of inconvenience one ought to avoid. And as the first stars appeared above the fells, she thought she heard the snow whisper to the lake. Keep today’s footsteps. She may come looking for them tomorrow.