Snow.

So strange for there to be snow. Lily’s foot crunched lightly into the colorless powder. Lily looked over her shoulder to confirm the mystery of snow in the summer. Behind her, a lush green meadow with sunbeams and blue skies. In front of her, the snowy expanse of winter’s blanket. Trees, gnarled and leafless, with twisting branches heavy with fresh snowfall. The eerie quiet of the cold. No animals, no birds. Lily walked onward.

Each step leaving a trail as she forged new ground. She walked very carefully, testing each step, unsure of the depth in front of her. As Lily passed the last gnarled tree of the wilted forest the landscape opened up to a snowy desert. White drifts and powdered hilly mounds were the only characters to break the uninterrupted horizon. Lily thought better and retraced her steps back to the last tree.

“Snap!” She grabbed a long, thin branch and broke it from the tree. She flexed. in her hands testing it for strength. The corners of her mouth turned down and her brow furrowed as she studied her new tool. A look of satisfaction spread over her face as she deemed it true for the stick’s purpose. Walking out into the snow she sunk the tip into the surface and tested its depth.

She pulled it out and studied it. Judging by the frost stuck the bark, the snow here was about three inches deep. Her father taught her how to do that. When Lily was younger, the two of them would go hiking together and he was always full of useful knowledge about the forest. He was good at things like that.

She saw something. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized there was a change from the desolation of nothingness. Barely visible and a couple of hundred yards off in the distance, there were a group of tiny black specks rising from the horizon. She moved towards them to see what they were.

From above, all one could see is a small girl-like figure moving along the unwritten page of existence leaving a trail of dots the unspoken thoughts of her footsteps. To be spoken if only she could find the words.

Lily moved towards an expansive break in the ice. As she closed in on the black dots, they became larger. They began to take shape and she realized they were penguins. She counted them as they stood along the edge of the broken ice, facing outwards towards the fridged water. The nine penguins were all facing a capsized ship off in the distance. Lily stood with them. The ship was clearly upside-down, with its wooden underbelly exposed. The crags of a broken black hole facing the world, warning others not to pursue the unknown.

Solemnly, the penguins seemed to be paying homage to some fantastic mystery. Lily did not want to interrupt the ceremony. So she stood there in silence respect to the cathedral of the capsized ship. The patron saint of penguins.

They began to chatter as they turned towards an approaching figure. He had a long tattered cloak of stitched together material. Old and worn, it dragged along the snow as he neared the ice. The penguins seemed to be expecting him as they parted the way making a path for him to reach the edge of the ice.

He took his cloak off, folded it, and set it in the snow. The man was shirtless and bald. But the most striking thing about him was he was entirely blue.

The blue man stood at the edge of the water. A statue of wise appraisal assessing the impossible. The penguins lined either side of him, silently studying the capsized ship. To Lily, it seemed like the blue man was in some mental combat with the unreachable ship.

She looked at the boat and then back at him when she realized he wasn’t just here to stand at the edge of the ice, “You’re not going to swim out there are you?”

“You met me at a very strange time in my life,” the blue man replied.

“Come on,” Lily turned facing him and gesturing at the boat with the broken stick she used to measure the snow, “Don’t do this. Nobody could make it out in the water. You’ll freeze,” she could not believe what he was suggesting. He would surely die trying this ridiculous feat.

The blue man turned back to Lily, “This is not my first time.”

“What!? Nobody could stand water that cold,” she looked up at him with sympathy in her eyes. Lily felt a deep compassion for this man and the madness he was suggesting, “you’ll surely freeze in the water before you ever make it.”

“I will make it,” the blue man gazed at the boat, “I have to,” he pushed out his chest defiantly towards the impossible.

“How many times have you tried?” Lily warmed with ambition for his steadfast courage, but she had to know the truth.

“Countless,” the blue man looked down studying his reflection in the icy water, “I have died countless times.”

“Died?” Lily didn’t understand this part. We only have one life to live. How could the blue man have countless lives? And why did he spend them doing this thing over and over? She didn’t see the point but she knew one thing for sure, “You’re wasting your life.”

“No life is ever wasted,” in a solemn act, he placed his blue hand on her shoulder, “the only thing we waste is the time that we think we are alone.”

He turned to the water, nodded his head to the penguins, and without another word, he dove in. The murky water swallowed his form and he disappeared for a moment.

Lily rushed to the edge of the water. She watched as he took powerful strokes, gliding his way to the ship. The water was freezing, she could tell that. She looked down to see the penguins, shoulder to shoulder, anxiously watching as well. They chattered anxiously as the Blue Man methodically breathed and swam.

He pushed himself to go farther than he had ever gone before. Past a small iceberg, through some frozen seaweed. Each place was a small memorial for past deaths. The memory of those places briefly haunted him, as they rose to the surface. The blue man quickly pushed them away and let them submerge back to where they came from.

Determined and relentless, the Blue Man swam.

For a moment he seemed to sputter, his shoulders hitching, and a plume of breath rose from the halted wake in the icy water. Was this it for him? Like a whale surfacing from the depths of the ocean. A small cloud hanging above him, like a thought bubble, without words, but representing desperation.

Lily’s hands rose to her mouth, it can’t end like this? Is the blue man going to drown? Don’t give up! Don’t die!

She leaned slightly forward as if trying to will him to continue, if only for a few more strokes. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the penguins had leaned forward too. The smallest had crept so close to the ice’s edge, his tangerine orange feet were hanging over the broken snow, dangling over the desolate blue water.

But the man did regain what he lost. He moved slowly, but with purpose. He closed in on the wet brown wood of the capsized ship, toward the gaping maw of the derelict ship and its decimated underbelly.

His blue hands reached out to the fractured boards and grasped for a significant purchase. His powerful fingers gripped the wood, in a moment that trumped fate, the blue man pulled himself in. He glided over the opening as some of the boards scrapped his blue side. The broken boards cutting into his skin and creating deep, raised welts. Undeterred, the blue man crested the black gulf. His head, neck, and shoulders disappearing into it as he slipped into the darkness.

To that moment, Lily failed to realize she had been holding her breath the whole time the blue man was swimming.

“Whew!” she exhaled. Now the blue man made it to the ship, what happens next?

The penguins chattered excitedly. One by one, they dove into the sub-zero water. Following the blue man. When they reached the wreck, they swam around in circles. Some sort of sacred ceremony only the likes of penguins know about. After every circumferential round about the capsized ship, the smallest would squawk a call of victory

How many times had he done this before? Lily reflected on the blue man’s words, about this not being his first time.

Lily’s mind was spinning as she remained transfixed on the circling penguins Every time around, her head became lighter, but she couldn’t turn away. Hypnotically, she swayed as the sensation drained from her hands and feet. Uncontrollably, Lily pitched forward as she saw the snowy ground coming up to meet her.