A World of Difference by Edmund Cooper

Author:Edmund Cooper [COOPER, EDMUND]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2015-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

The Snow Crystals

The Snow Crystals

It was there before dawn, because Fiona had crept out of the house like a ghost in the grey half-light; and then she had found it.

The house was a house of loneliness, and her tiny one-roomed apartment sat on the fifth floor above all the other bed-sitters. It was not a home, not even a refuge — more like a solitary confinement cell. It was just a place in which to pass the time, to lie awake in bed and listen to the night hours ticking by, and to think of loving someone — or being loved — as if the whole idea were nothing more than an enchanting legend.

But there actually were people who were not alone, and there were people who were loved. The only trouble was that Fiona was not one of them. She was just a lonely girl in a city that neither knew nor cared. And she nursed her loneliness and cherished it because there was nothing else to do, and because today was Saturday and the empty weekend stretched before her like a life sentence.

In the darkness of the night, the hours had dawdled into centuries, while the restless unending sounds of the city became echoes from another world. She had been impatient for daybreak, impatient for sunlight, desperately impatient for colour to come back to life. So, as the first pale promise of shapes and shadows filtered through her window, she got out of bed, dressed hurriedly and crept downstairs and out into the garden to watch the sunrise.

The sunrise would be an event; and to watch such a big event was almost as good as not being alone. She was looking for nothing but the sunrise, so when she found the snow crystal it was breathtaking. She felt she had discovered the secret of the world.

It was not an ordinary snowflake, however. Apart from the fact that the night had been exceptionally warm — even for high summer — the snowflake was like nothing she had ever seen before.

It was more than six inches across and lay serenely on the grass with all the glittering intensity of a finely cut diamond. But there had never been a diamond like this. It was a thing of frozen fire, a six-sided miracle of transparent ferns and tiny petals and buds that might imminently open. It was a structure of whirls and curves and exciting spirals. It was like one of the great nebulae of the night sky. Or, perhaps, a fallen star.

At first she was afraid to touch it, afraid that such delicate beauty might shiver into nothingness beneath her fingers. But then the curiosity and excitement became too much, and she did touch it. It was not cold like snow, nor did it melt. It was warm, pleasant to touch, strangely vibrant with life. The sheer vitality of it seemed to leap through her fingers and along her arm like an electric shock.

She picked it up, and there was

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