...and then there was the snowman.
To make a snow man you need to work together for not one person can make a man, not even one of snow. You need at least two. At Walworth Park they had a group of five.
These kids had found a spot where the snow was untouched and started piling snow up on top of snow until they made a pile of snow that came up to their knees which satisfied them and meant that they could start getting the ball rolling.
This nether part of the snowman was the easiest one to make for you only had to roll it a couple revolutions and leave it. The only thing that had to be decided was how big the snowman would be.
‘We have to make sure we have enough white snow to make the other parts, guys! No dirty slosh on the snowman,’ one of the kids said decisively. ‘This is big enough.’
‘No, bigger!’ said another kid.
‘No. This is big enough,’ the first kid replied curtly, with the calmness of someone who gets his way.
They started on the second ball, the mid section of the snowman, which took less time. Well, it did take less time but because it took less time it ended up taking more time. As soon as the mid section was put on and they had stepped back to look at the proportions, one kid broke away from the group. This cold spell had their little world frozen, and now it seemed that time had too. Something was about to happen, contrary to what they had been doing, but it seemed that the group willed it to happen, even if none of them had said a word. Instead of dread and disbelief there was elation bourgeoning within all of the kids who were present as they thought about it. The girl who had broken away slowly, now sprinted fast towards the snowman; spearing its torso, crushing it in a hug as she landed on the snow covered grass. She laughed as she turned around, still having some of the snowman's ribcage on her red hands, for she has no gloves, and started to throw snow at one of the other kids.
‘Look! She even has some in her mouth! Haha! She's eating the snowman!’
Wanton destruction lies just below a child's surface. Despite having made them work for nothing she had thrilled them and a little snowball fight ensued before they went back to making the snowman again, with more exhilaration and alacrity than before.
They rolled the head of the snowman on the surface of the park, trapping the snow to each other. The snowman was big, bigger than all of them so now came the challenge of how to put the head on top.
‘Should we maybe have one of us climb on top the snowman and then pull the head up?’ the girl who had speared the snowman suggested, innocently enough.
‘Yeah, right,’ said the defacto leader, the biggest of all the kids. He had sussed her out for she had started grinning.
One of the other kids was walking around the nearly completed snowman in a circle seemingly deep in thought. They all now stared at him walking around the snowman waiting for him to figure it out. This kid they were familiar with like all neighbourhood kids are familiar with all the kids in the neighbourhood. He hadn't come up with a single idea ever but for some reason the kid had authority now. He lapped the snowman a few more times when he said:
‘Why don't we roll the head up on the side. The left side.’
‘The left side?’
‘Yeah the left side. It won't work on the right side.’
‘Why?’
‘It just won’t.’
‘Okay. Let's roll it up guys. That's a great idea!’
‘The left side.’
‘The left side!’
They grabbed the head of the snowman while a few of the other kids gathered closer around the snowman. They were told to push from the right side to make sure the snowman didn't topple from the weight being pushed on the left side. They started to roll the head up on its left side. But as they rolled it up, they found that the head was getting bigger and the nether and torso was getting smaller.
‘Oh what a stupid idea!’ someone said as they realised what was going on. ‘But keep going. We have to get to the top.’
And to the top it rolled and when it got there it was almost the size of the torso. They were standing there looking a little baffled as everyone knows the head is supposed to be half the size of the torso. Now what?
‘Let’s just pad the torso a bit more,’ someone said, ‘with new snow.’
That's what they did. Once they did that it didn't look like a perfect sphere, but at least it was in better proportion than before. It was actually a bit more human-like in this way because we don't gain belly weight in a spherical shape. Things get more lumpy.
Now it was time to get to the face. People were allocated different roles. One was to get the carrot for his nose and it was only one who could say with certainty that he had carrots in the house for they had some stew the night before. What about the eyes? You have a marble collection don’t you, one kid was asked. Bring two red ones. And the smile? Does anyone have a buttons? One kid knew what to do, for her dad loved button shirts. She went home quickly, took a pair of scissors and one of his father's tops, and cut off all of them, bringing the snowman’s smile to its owner. This last one was the girl who had speared him. She was trying to put the last few buttons on his face but they kept falling off every time she put them on. These were the last three buttons which wouldn't stick. She puffed exasperated the second time they fell off.
‘What’s the matter, snowman?’ she asked cheekily. ‘Are you still mad about me spearing you? Stop being so frosty, snowman, and let. Me. Make. You. Smile!’
She slammed the buttons on his face this time and again the buttons slid off his face. There was silence and all were looking at her. She tried it one more time, already knowing what would happen and once it did happen she started crying, watching the buttons fall in front of her.
‘Why don't you want to smile for me?’ she asked, wailing, throwing her hands to her sides in powerlessness. 'Why doesn't he smile for me?’ She ran away towards her home distraught, rejected, in tears.
Snow started to fall again on Walworth Park. The other kids went home too, for what use did they have with a snowman who doesn't smile and left the snowman for the snow to bury him.
That night the snowman tried to sleep, for the first time ever, but he found sleep hard to come by.
‘Why could I not smile?’ he asked himself, his eyes open as the snowflakes fell on them. 'If only I could have smiled then I wouldn't have to fend for myself. They might have built a house for me so that I would not be buried by snow, I would have lived life comfortably all through the snow days of winter except for the fact that I couldn't smile. Why could I not smile?’ Only his head was visible and the snow was falling hard and fast. ‘This didn't happen the last time someone made me, so why now?’ He was merging with the snow around him and losing his consciousness but the snowman's introspection continued because he was baffled. ‘Have I become unpleasant out of nowhere? Why did the smile not stick? I didn't even care if she speared me, because I was repaired so soon after, in a better more human way too. So why could I not smile? In my line of life a smile is make or break,’ was his final thought before the snow from which he was built took him again.
The next day the snowfall died down and there was so much snow, so thick, that the only obvious thing to do was to make a snowman, and that was despite the frost being as thick as the snow. It was the coldest day of the year. That's what the kids at the park of Surrey Quays did, and just like the kids at Walworth Park they rolled three balls of different sizes. One carrot, two marbles and eight buttons. One little boy had the task to put the snowman’s smile in place but when he put the eight one on his face, four of the buttons fell off. Confused, there was no wind, no earthquake, no melting sun rays, the kid looked down at the buttons that fell off. He blamed himself. Maybe he pushed down too hard. He quickly bent down to pick up the fallen buttons and put them back on, very gently. But again the buttons fell off.
‘What’s up with the snowman,’ one of the kids exclaimed. ‘He doesn't want to smile for us. What's wrong with the snowman?’
One tall girl walked up towards the snowman and picked up the fallen buttons. Her face was flushed with the anticipation of triumph. She put the buttons on the snowman's face carefully, precisely, tenderly, and stepped back to watch her success. One by one the buttons fell off again.
The strong frost of the air made itself felt now on the kids and a couple of them shivered staring at the unpleasant snowman who doesn't smile.
‘It’s no good having a snowman like this,’ one of them said. ‘A snowman who doesn't want to smile.’ A light flashed over the marble eyes of the snowman.
The girl snatched the buttons that were on the snowman’s face.
‘Yeah it's no good having a snowman who doesn't smile,’ she said, embarrassed at her failure. ‘Especially when they think we made them. We’re going to look bad.’
The snowman found himself in pieces again, before his time.
‘What is going on?’ he asked himself, perplexed. ‘Why is my smile always falling off? Am I really doing this?’ he asked, suspicious now. ‘Is there something else that's doing this to me, something that doesn't want me to live on this earth?’
That night and the next day it didn't snow, but it was colder, much colder, but there was still a lot of snow at Morden Park. But because it was so cold no one came outside to make a snowman. Evening time came and a man crossed the park, holding a bottle in his hand. He was drunk. This man got about halfway down the park when he stumbled and fell in the snow. The man let out a drunken laugh and remained in the snow for a couple moments. He then tried to get up but ended with his stomach on the ground and his arm extended like he was reaching out for his lover. More moments passed while he laughed brokenly. He pulled his arm in, pushed himself up, and sat down heavily, looking around the snow covered park. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say why not and started making a snowman. This was a smaller snowman than the one the kids had made but the process was the same. He made three balls of ascending sizes in a stop start manner, his drunkenness in the way of his smoothness, but he got there in the end. Now was time for the face he said to himself when he realised that he didn't have the necessary items for a snowman’s face. In a theatrical way he patted himself down knowing full well that he couldn't make the face. But then he saw the buttons on his shirt, and in his drunken mind he thought why not. He ripped off the buttons on his shirt and placed them on the face.
‘At least I can make you smile,’ he said aloud. As he put the last buttons on his face, he saw that the last three buttons fell off almost as soon as he had put them on. He frowned and looked down at the buttons and then the face. ‘Haha. So unnatural. What are you, under a spell or something? When was the last time you returned a smile, snowman?’
This snowman heard the words and then realised that his mind had been played with. He remembered now that he had never smiled before rather than just simply stopping to smile.
‘Strange,’ the snowman said, smiling to himself. ‘Why would I, a snowman, never have smiled before? Don't I exist to smile?’ Before he realised it, the buttons had stuck to his face and his internal smile had become an external smile.
‘See. Nothing to be scared of. I won't fall in love with your smile. Hold on.’
The drunken man now looked at the snowman more critically.
‘But what snowman has just a smile? A snowman with just a smile looks weird.’
He stood up, with the small snowman reaching up to his knee, and stomped on the smiling snowman. The drunken man looked at the pile of snow that had his boot print and turned to find the bottle he had dropped; picked it up and was pleased to find that there was still some left to take a swig. He trudged off back across the park, trying to pull the two parts of his shirt together that had no buttons, his drunken mind wondering why he couldn't close his shirt. Where were his buttons?
