Okami

“I’m gonna name you Snowy,” Kari said as he strained to roll a snowball across the sugar-coated field. “And you’re gonna be the bestest snowman ever!”

Soft flakes dotted his eyelashes and stuck to his hand-me-down coat like stars. Warm breath escaped his lips in heavy pants beneath his pa’s thick scarf—the one his mum had pulled over his delicate nose to keep him safe from the biting cold. Kari’s clothes didn’t fit quite right, but the light in his eyes was right at home, gleaming as he gazed around his beautiful, newfound land of snow and ice with innocent glee. It was a powerful cold unlike anything he’d ever experienced—richer than the chills of frigid hospitals, stiller than the icy mist that rolled out of the freezer in waves. The winter before him was real, drifting out of the sky before his very eyes. And it was perfect.

When the first snowball was nearly up to his knees, Kari could push no more. He fell to the snow, arms aflame, grinning and laughing. As his quick breaths calmed, Kari stretched out his limbs and wiggled to and fro, making an angel like the kids on TV did. It had a beautiful broken gown of crumpled snow and strong, curved wings; Kari loved his gentle angel immensely, even when he ruined its borders in the struggle to get back up again.

Kari couldn’t lift the other snowballs; instead, he lined them up beside the first. For eyes, he gave it pebbles; for a nose, a snapped twig. His snowman was tired, as was he, so they lay together in the snow and stared up at the sheet-white sky, watching the flurry of falling snowflakes drifting down.

“Isn’t it pretty today?”

“Yes,” replied the snowman. “There is much beauty to be seen in the cold.”

Kari reached up to the sky with a smile. “I wish it could snow every day.”

“Do you?” the snowman asked as the sky curled grey with storm clouds. “Do you wish for an eternal winter upon this land?”

“Hmm, I guess not,” Kari shrugged, letting his arm down. “Mum doesn’t like the snow ‘cause it messes up her car.”

“I… see,” said the snowman, who did not really see; it had never even heard of such a thing. “So, what is it you—”

“Will you go away when winter’s over?” It had taken a lot of work to roll up all that snow, and Kari couldn’t bear to see his new friend disappear with the season.

“No,” the snowman said. “I am the rain and the clouds, the rivers and the seas. I am the god of water and ice, and I will never leave this realm.”

“That’s nice. I like you. I don’t want you to go away.”

“Oh,” said the snowman, not used to dealing with children and their ways. “Then, is that what you wish for?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? A god-given wish should not be taken lightly, child.”

“You talk funny,” Kari giggled.

“I talk properly,” the ice god stormed, futilely, as it was still a limbless, sideways snowman. “And boy, why haven’t you given me any arms?”

“I couldn’t find any!”

“You couldn’t find any?” the snowman roared. “I am a deity of nature—I have ascended from the world of mortals! Countless souls have been sacrificed to earn my favor—go get me some arms! And some legs while you’re at it—no deity should be so pathetically limbless and immobile.”

“Snowmen don’t have legs, silly,” Kari laughed. “And look!” He kicked one leg in the air. “Neither do I!” The loose-fitting winter pants slid down to reveal cold metal—a shining prosthetic limb made of plates and braces had been attached to a fleshy stump at the knee with rough cloth straps.

“O-Oh,” the deity stammered; not much could take the ancient being by surprise, but it had yet to see a legless boy.

“Here,” Kari said, detaching one of his metal limbs and sticking it into the snowman. “Now we both have one!”

“So we do,” the snowman muttered. “So we do. Thank you, human.”

And Kari, the human, smiled.

A woman sat beside her kitchen window with a warm mug of coffee nestled between her fingers. Outside, her son played with a face brighter than the shining snow. He was talking to a sideways snowman, she noticed with a smile—a snowman with a single prosthetic leg. Faint wisps of conversation drifted through the glass, not enough to be words, but tinged with a sort of happiness that had been missing in her house for too long. She sipped her coffee and thanked the gods; even if it was only imaginary, her little boy had finally found a friend in the snow.