Snowball Shambhala

More about Snowball Shambhala

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The snowball landed at Maja’s feet in the middle of summer.

It did not melt. Inside its cloudy white surface, a tiny bird tapped with its beak.

Maja breathed into her hands and cupped the snowball gently. It opened like a flower.

Out stepped the bird, shaking stars from its feathers.

“Shambhala has misplaced its morning,” it said.

Before Maja could ask how a city lost such a thing, the garden folded upward into white mountains. Golden bridges crossed the sky. Stairways climbed through houses no larger than sugar cubes, and enormous pale faces watched from the clouds.

At the highest gate hung a motionless sun.

“Someone must carry it down,” said the bird.

Maja began climbing.

At the first stairway, she found an old woman trying to mend a torn coat. Maja stopped to thread her needle. Above them, one golden window opened.

At the second, a boy sat beside a frozen fountain.

“I wished winter would last forever,” he confessed. “My brother promised to come home before spring.”

Maja sat with him until he was ready to stand. Together they broke the thin ice over the basin.

Water sounded through the streets.

At the third stairway, Maja grew angry.

“If morning is so important, why am I the only one fetching it?”

Her voice struck the marble. Every stair vanished.

She stood on a narrow ledge above the sleeping city.

The bird settled beside her.

“You could ask for help.”

Maja looked down. The old woman was leaving her house, carrying a length of golden thread. The boy followed with a ladder. Behind them came bakers, gardeners, chimney sweepers, and children still wrapped in blankets.

They passed the ladder upward. They tied it securely. They held it while Maja climbed.

At the gate, the sun was small enough to lift, but terribly cold.

Maja tucked it inside her coat.

She thought of the boy waiting at the fountain, of the old woman bending close to see her stitches, of all those hands steadying the ladder.

A little warmth stirred beneath her ribs.

The sun answered.

Light spread through the embroidery of her coat. White flowers opened along its seams. Below, blue canals flashed between the houses, and snow slid from the golden bridges.

By the time Maja reached the square, morning had filled her arms.

The boy’s brother arrived at noon.

Later, when the garden unfolded around her again, Maja found the snowball resting in her palm. Inside it stood a tiny city, its windows bright.

She set it on her windowsill.

On difficult mornings, she turned it gently and watched the snow fall.

Somewhere within, a small bird woke the bakers.