Ever wondered what it’s like to be a fly on a wall? Just observing everything unfolding around you. This story unfolds in an unlikely place: a snow globe. These objects, commonly used as decoration, are often admired for their glittering beauty. The scenes in the snow globe always appear so peaceful. Inside that little bubble, we can imagine ourselves as the flies on the wall. Just observing from the outside. What if we observed that the scene that seems so still in the snow globe is actually the life of real people living in a different world? This story is just about that. Enjoy!
The man in the snow globe
The man opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through the window. He found himself tucked into bed and felt like he had been in an eternal slumber. As he got out of bed, his limbs were stiff, and his bones cracking sounded like popping popcorn. He looked around his bedroom, which was in an old wooden cabin, his shelves lined with books, decorative figures, candles, tiny succulent plants, and other various knick-knacks. Above the shelves was an ornate clock that was ticking. He was initially confused by the space around him. It was like he had been plopped into a stranger’s house. But as the seconds ticked away, the strangeness of this room slowly dissipated, like the morning fog clearing away through the day, and soon he felt like he had always lived here. He walked out of his bedroom to the rest of his little cabin. It had a warm, cozy feeling, with the fireplace crackling gently.
Shaking off the remnants of his sleep away, he prepared himself a cup of tea and walked out of his cabin to the front porch. He seemed to be in a snow-covered forest. The sunlight sparkled through the trees, coloring the leaves a vibrant green. The snow-covered ground sparkled under the light. The scent of pine laced the crisp, cool breeze that blew his way. There was a chair on the porch where he sat to enjoy the view before him while sipping his warm lavender tea. Looking around, he realized he must have missed the snowfall. He had never seen snowfall. And now, looking at all the snow around him, he yearned to watch the snow fall around him. He looked up at the sky, but no clouds were in sight. Perhaps another day, he would see it.
With his cup empty, he went about his day. He prepared his breakfast, cleaned up around the house, and tended to the garden at the back of his home that was mysteriously flourishing in this cold winter. He played music and sat by the fireplace to read a book. Then something strange happened.
He felt the ground shaking beneath him faintly. But that was ridiculous. He had to be imagining this, right? It only became stronger. Now, the whole house was shaking. Everything was rattling, his dishes clinking together. He stood up on the unstable ground and almost fell over. And suddenly, his entire world flipped around. Everything was upside down. He crashed onto the ceiling, now the floor, with every other object in the house (except the furniture, which seemed to have been stuck to the cabin floor). There were sounds of objects breaking and glass shattering all around. Before he could understand what was happening, his world flipped back around. And once again, he fell, along with everything else, accompanied by more destruction. The ground stopped moving. He lay on the ground for some time, wondering what had happened. His neat, tidy cabin was utterly wrecked, objects strewn everywhere. Helplessly, he stared at his cabin. He didn’t know what to do, so he walked outside and stopped at the door in shock.
The majestic scene before him made him forget about his cabin and the entire world going upside down. It was snowing. He stood there in awe as the air sparkled with the falling snowflakes. The choreographed, delicate dance between the snowflakes entranced him. He took a seat on his chair and felt at peace. He would deal with the mess in his cabin later.