The Snowman

I woke up covered in drooling, screaming children. They were climbing on my shoulders, poking me with sticks, even licking me. Their disgusting fleshy pink bodies evoked some distant memory not quite my own, yet not quite that of another either. It was then that I realized that I had no recollection of my life before at all.

I was made of snow, that much I could tell, with tree branches for arms, a carrot for a nose, and coal for a mouth, eyes, and buttons. Atop my head there rested a silken hat of black, laced with crimson to match the scarf that covered my neck. I tried to scream, but as most people could tell you, snowmen don’t have vocal cords. They do, however, seem to have some form of substitute for muscles. And joints. And brains. And eyes. And ears. And just about everything else they need to move, think, perceive outside stimuli, and keep these systems running. I shook the children off of my body and was pleased to discover myself to be capable of running without legs, which is just what I did.

I didn’t look back as I fled for the safety of the woods by which I now found myself, though I could hear the shuffling of the excited children not far to my rear. I kept running long after they seemed to have given up the chase. I didn’t want to take any chances.

I waddled slowly through the snow, seeking a place of refuge to calm my mind and make sense of this all. I didn’t feel safe out in the open. After hours of fruitless searching, I happened upon a drafty, ice-covered cave, visible only for my ability to sense things through the snow around me. There I spent the winter, through some form of magic not requiring external energy to fuel my body.

Come spring, though, I found myself melting, losing not only body, but mind as well. The more snow that melted, the more sentience I lost, bringing me into a sort of zombie-like trance. Over the course of the winter I had come to learn that my body ran almost exclusively on magic, the brand of which was powered by snow. It was the snow magic that fueled my thought processes, not an organ as I had initially suspected. If I could pack on more snow, I could temporarily strengthen my consciousness enough to form a plan as to what should be done next.

I scrambled slowly out of the den, scanning the surrounding area for danger. It was a difficult task to execute in my condition, but I managed to spot a small pile of snow about twenty feet away. I tottered cautiously in its direction, falling flat on my face many a step. When I reached the snow pile, I did not hesitate to drop to the ground and start rolling around in it. A sudden chill wracked my being as I came abruptly to my senses. This snow wouldn’t last forever; there was work to be done.

The next few days were spent planning ways to keep cool. The most realistic of these plans involved locking myself in a freezer, though even this had some major flaws. Another plan involved befriending a little girl and traveling to the North Pole via freight train to meet Santa Claus and ruin a young magician’s life, but that was of course impossible. The rest were just rubbish. As the snow grew scarcer and scarcer I was forced to venture farther and farther away from my den to find it, eventually giving up hope altogether.

It was on my last dreary day of snow hunting before I was to curl up in a ball and die a slow and miserable death that I happened upon a curious idea. My mind could not possibly have generated something so preposterous, and it was for this reason only that I used it. This just might work, I thought with a twisted smile. I had a plan.

It was late afternoon that I did it. My victim’s guardian had just left to make tea as I waited patiently in the bushes for the opportune moment to strike. I slithered silently from my post, careful not to make any sudden movements as I crept up behind the unsuspecting child. He let out a sudden gasp as I plunged my fangs into his fat, juicy neck before swallowing him in his entirety. The deed was done. Then, as quickly as I had appeared, I was gone, leaving behind nothing but a small orange snowsuit and a pool of blood. I could almost feel the magical bonds strengthening within me. The thaw’s effect on me would soon be no more.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I continued to devour children until I became pink and squishy. The human flesh had a curious effect on my body of snow, fusing with it to form a fleshy compound that locked in magic and could not be easily melted. I had known this already, in the same way that I had been reminded of something upon seeing the children playing. But where were these thoughts coming from? I—the hat! This was the source of the magic, and this was the source of my memories! The hat was, of course, the supplier of this sudden realization. It all made sense now! In my excitement I neglected to watch my balance, falling flat on my face once more. But this greasy new cranium of flesh was much more slippery than my old head of well-packed snow, and the hat slid easily off, picked up by a sudden gust of wind and carried away.

It wasn’t long before one of the parents of my victims discovered a heap of rotting flesh behind their house and contacted the authorities. It was here that most of their attention was focused, leaving a clear path for the silk hat that made its way into the ice sculpture museum on the other side of town.