“We knew it wouldn't last forever,” Tom’s gentle voice sounded behind Rae who stood still over a heap of slushy snow.
“I know,” she said, the tone of her voice telling otherwise.
Tom watched as his friend nudged a carrot sticking out of the pile with her foot before she bent down and picked up a muddy scarf and the various pebbles that once smiled back at her. She turned towards Tom and his heart ached at the sight of her pale frozen checks that once glowed with life.
“Still,” she shrugged, her voice wavering, “it would have been nice.”
The disheartened girl looked back at the snow that was once a man. “but it’s like you said, nothing lasts forever right?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Tom stared at the hunched figure. Her grey eyes that mirrored the gloomy spring sky surveyed the ground as if recollecting old memories that had fallen out of reach. Her wind blown hair could not even veil the sorrow that stood out on her fine features so plainly, pulling down the corners of her mouth and wrinkling her forehead.
Something moved in Toms chest as Rae sighed heavily and he turned to face her, suddenly wanting nothing more than to see those grey eyes light with the happiness that once was held there. “No,” he said with determined forcefulness, “I was wrong. Some things do last forever.”
Rae’s eyes were fixed downwards but confusion was clear on her face. Tom struggled to find the right words, wringing his hands, tugging his hair. “Physically maybe,” he said, “physically things, people, can disappear but you still remember them right?”
Tom ran his hands through his hair abruptly and a rush of words tumbled out of him.
“Memory, Rae. Memory keeps things alive. Forever and always. Sure, we will fade too, sickness can take us too, but there will still be the memory carried down by the people who loved us. And that memory goes on, doesn't it?
Tom grinned and grasped Rae’s hands. She continued to stare at the pile of snowman and Tom tilted his head, trying to find her gaze.
“Forever,” he said quietly, tilting her chin upwards gently until she finally looked up. Tom smiled shyly and a familiar warmth spread into Rae’s chest. Tears clouded her sight and Tom pulled her close as she half cried, half laughed into his jacket.
They stood locked both in past and present, releasing the knots in between until Rae, wiping her face, held up the ratted scarf she had picked off the ground, handing it to her other.
”It was his, remember” she said with a sniff, then chuckled “even the snowman couldn't wear it forever.
Tom laughed softly and took the red cloth in his hands. With a sad smile he remembered their friend wrapping it around a large snow ball, singing outdated christmas carols and ignoring the warnings that the cold weather could kill his frail body. Rae’s smile told Tom that they shared the same thoughts.
“He’s there in our memories,” he reminded her solemnly, “him and the snowman both.”
Rae laughed and wiped her eyes as Tom wrapped the scarf around her shoulders. “You wear it, to remember them.”
“Until I melt?” she teased.
Tom grinned. “Until we both melt.”
