Bedtime Love Stories: Arctic Ice
In the Arctic, it’s almost impossible for two people to have a chat if they meet on the road. The cold is so intense that spoken words turn into ice and snow as soon as they leave your mouth, leaving the other person unable to hear them. You have to pick up the words, take them home, and thaw them by the fire to listen.
Sometimes, you might find a thin piece of ice and guess it’s a light greeting. But you won’t be satisfied until you bring it home and let it melt, revealing a simple “Good evening,” and then you feel relieved.
A love word is a piece of crystal-clear ice, often thin but heavy. When you get home, you turn off the lights, pour a glass of red wine, and secretly melt it to listen. Only this way can you recreate the emotions of that moment. You ask yourself how to pronounce the word? Slightly tipsy. Sometimes, you’re reluctant to listen to it all at once and save the remaining ice for later.
Care from elders to juniors is a thicker piece of ice, not too heavy but darker in color. Such ice needs to be melted over a gentle fire to capture the slow, heartfelt meanings behind it.
As for the dirty snow on the roadside, don’t pick it up. Unless you don’t mind filthy words dirtying your desk.
Of course, these are just the usual scenarios. Language is ever-changing and hard to fathom.
Most people melt all the ice they collect.
Only true experts can discern the quality of words, lifting the ice up to the light, weighing it in their hands, and immediately knowing if it’s good or bad. These experts run ice shops in town, helping people decipher words.
For instance, if someone close to you gives you a piece of ice, and you’re too scared to melt it because you’re anxious about their meaning, you can take it to an expert. If it’s identified as kind or loving words, you can happily melt it. If it’s hurtful words, you can return it unopened, preserving some dignity.
There was a young man, a true expert. He could distinguish good ice from bad and took pride in his precision. Such a person is a natural ice language master, but he never opened his own ice shop. No one knew why, assuming he was just reclusive and disliked the spotlight.
The young man loved collecting discarded or lost sentences from the roadside, bringing them home to melt and listen to slowly, imagining the speaker’s appearance, demeanor, and mood. Each day, he collected different pieces of ice. Despite being able to discern their quality, he picked up everything except dirty snow.
He used tongs (hands would affect clarity) to hold a piece of ice, heating it gently first to understand its type. Then he would decide whether to use high heat, medium heat, warm water, warm wine, or some other method to listen. He was meticulous about this because different methods greatly affect the ice.
Careless heating would waste it. Just yesterday, he melted a piece containing a quarrel between two brothers, laughing heartily as the words scattered around his house.
His actions were rough, but the process was extremely refined.
Another of his habits was selecting ice with his eyes closed. Seeing a piece immediately revealed its type, which he found dull. Closing his eyes made it more like drawing cards, always a surprise. Unfortunately, when he encountered broken ice, he could only hear half the message. In such cases, he would go out looking for the rest of the broken ice, often to no avail. Driven by curiosity, he had to piece the ice together.
First, he needed to understand the ice’s quality, then piece it together. This wasn’t difficult for him. The challenge lay in guessing the speaker’s mood. Human emotions are fleeting, words are complex, and it’s hard to imagine what the next sentence might be. No one can always get it right, not even his master.
Three years ago, he was wandering alone on the ice field when his master found him, as casually as picking up a piece of ice. He followed her hazily, fainting after a few steps. When he awoke, he was in a room, feeling warmth return to his limbs from the fur wrapped around him. He smelled the dry scent of firewood and the metallic tang of animal blood, feeling safe and happy, until he heard her voice: “Give me one reason not to throw you out.”
“Huh?” His heart sank.
He wasn’t thrown out and became her prized student—yes, his master was a woman.
His good taste in ice was thanks to her.
They once searched for broken ice together on the ice field, him in front, her behind, saying nothing. By then, he was capable on his own, his years of wandering making him confident and at ease. He never looked back at her, only focusing on picking up ice, but she was always there when they returned, not too far behind.
However, she didn’t teach him for long.
Once, a man brought her a thin piece of ice. The young man didn’t need to touch it to know it was a greeting, easily recognizable. But she treated it as a love word, a mistake he never understood whether it was intentional or not.
She was heartbroken by the man.
“I’ve listened to so many words, yet I still don’t understand people,” she said.
The young man didn’t understand, but seeing her cry, he realized for the first time she was a beautiful woman.
After she left, he collected the two tears she shed, frozen into crystals, and became the new ice language master.
He still pieced together ice, but vowed to be extremely cautious.
One afternoon, he examined a piece of ice.
Melting it briefly over a gentle fire, a small corner melted.
He couldn’t determine the shape of the remaining ice.
Indeed, love words are the hardest to piece together.
Knowing pondering was futile, he decided to practice more with others. His home supply of ice was depleted, and casual roadside collecting was no longer sufficient. Reluctantly, he went to a well-known expert’s house. Everyone knew his temperament and his dislike for crowds, so they were surprised to see him.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
