A Dream of Snow - A Christmas Tale {Michael Jackson Story}

A Dream of Snow - Part 1

Michael Jackson woke. He didn't quite know what had woken him. It must have been early in the morning. The light was pale though oddly bright as it poured through the windows into his bedroom. The house was still. It was Christmas morning.

There was a sound. A minor rustling. Almost a tiny chinking, clinking. A sound he knew from when he had been a little boy. A sound like... He rose and found the room cold, so cold that at first he thought he should see his own breath. Still he knew it wasn't the cold that had woken him.

Rubbing his arms, he walked towards the windows, his bare feet patting on the wooden floor, and then blinked both at the brighness and at the scene itself. Before his bedroom window lay Neverland - covered in snow, palm trees and all. The wind blew the powdery crystals against the windows causing the chinking, clinking, rustling sound, and even blew them through the cracks creating tiny drifts of snow on the windowsills of his bedroom. A sound like snow being blown against a bad window...

And there on the outside window board sat what had woken him: a big, black raven, plumage fluffed up against the cold, the wind that came around the corner of the house pulling on it. Click, click, click, it tapped its beak against the window pane. Click, click, click.

It doesn't snow in California. And if it were to snow, then certainly not in fine, powdery, frosty crystals, and most certainly not so that they would come to lie half a foot high.

"This is a dream," Michael said aloud, not to anyone in particular, but most probably mainly to himself.

The black, feathered part of his dream was persisting. Click, click, click.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Michael addressed the windswept creature through the glass, not expecting it to hear, and even less to understand, as he waved his hands in an attempt to scare it off. "You can't come in. Shhhh! Go away!"

The bird, dream or not, refused to be scared. It cocked its head to the side and eyed Michael with one of its perfectly round, jet-black eyes, but otherwise seemed unimpressed.

He could see it so clearly in all its details: the pumage ruffled by the wind, the smooth beak, the hair-like feathers around the nose, in which snow crystals had got caught, the shiny eye, the lashes... Suddenly Michael started to doubt that this was indeed a dream. He felt so cold. How could he be so cold and not wake up? And he was tired, too. His body was still longing for sleep. And the raven outside was so distinct. Maybe this was neither a dream nor a wild bird, but an escaped pet, that now, in this extreme weather, came looking for shelter in a human's window. Suddenly he was worried it might indeed be scared away.

"Alright. Okay. You want to come in? Let me open the window, then," he said in a calming tone, that stayed as unheard as all he had said before, slowly raised his hands to unbolt the lock, and shoved the window up. The icy wind and the gust of snow that hit him, knocked the breath out of him. He quickly took a step back. Snowflakes drifted around his toes.

The bird assessed the new situation briefly, and then sat on the window frame, it's head in the room, it's tail still out in the snow. And then it just sat there. Michael shivered. "In or out? You have to make up your mind. I got to close this. It's too cold!"

The bird looked around, and as if it had understood the decision put to it, suddenly flared its wings, dived into the room, and alighted accurately among a collection of family pictures on the mantelpiece. Michael jumped at the sheer size and utter blackness as it dashed close by him, and at the strength of the icy wind that the wings beat into his face. But he recovered quickly and hurried to bring the window down, securely bolting it, as if a lock could help to keep the cold out.

"Okay, let's get some warmth in here!" he muttered, brushing melting ice crystals off his sleeves as he hurried across the room to set the heating function of the air condition to work.