The little boy grew older.

On the winter of his sixteenth birthday his parents stopped watching him. They stopped asking if he wanted to sing. They believed he was old enough to wander about without making many mistakes. Maybe he would mingle with people his own age. He was at the age after all where he should be interested in girls and the like. He stopped talking about the girl on the ice a while back. That was years ago. They never brought the subject up. He must have forgotten about his imaginary friend by now.

The minute he realised his parents stopped sneaking glances at him he slipped outside.

He was curious, excited. His heart was pounding hard. He knew that if there was any chance of finding the girl again, it would be the winter, when everyone was in song. For that was when he first saw her. And see her again he did.

She danced and danced to a tuneless tune. She never stopped to take a break. He staggered forward, almost unable to walk in shock. She was just as he remembered in his vague memories, in her white dress, with her white hair, and clear blue eyes, dancing and dancing. He stood at the edge of the lake and watched her. She did not look a single day older than when he first saw her. For a while he just stood and watched, unable to approach. Scared. Uncertain. A short while later he made his way back into the old creaky town hall, no one any the wiser.

Once winter hit full swing everyone ate dinner at the town hall. It was warmer that way. When the mayor decided it was time everyone got the chairs and tables from their houses and stacked them against the walls. When night time fell, they brought out their tables and set them up. Like a giant family, the mayor would always say as they dug into whatever food they had available, mainly big batches of stews. Two families each would take a turn to cook for the town. Sid’s parents said that when they were children that was how they first met when both families were chosen to cook together. They fell in love that one winter day. That night he wondered if he should tell someone of the girl. His parents were to his right and a few people his age were to his left. He decided not to. He would keep this to himself he thought as he pondered over his food.

After dinner the tables and chairs would be once again stacked against the walls, and everyone would gather and sing. Sid snuck out the moment the songs begun. The drone from the hall was not loud enough to mask the sound coming from his heart. So loud. So fast. What if she was not there? But as he went to the front he saw her again. Dancing through the snow, waltzing on the ice.

After a few days and a few moments of hesitation he called out to her again.

It was the same, she did not respond, she kept dancing and dancing alone in her song. It was possible she did not hear, he was not able to get his voice across. He whispered, he talked, he yelled and he screamed. Nothing. Nothing.

He needed to get out to the ice. He tapped it with his foot. The ice was thin, but he could feel something welling up within. He would have to wait. Or think of another plan.

The next day the ice was much thicker. So much thicker that the entire town poured out of the hall to play on the ice. Nervously he got on. He touched the ice with a foot, he watched as the people skidded around. Then he got on. He was not scared. He was never scared even though he fell in before. He was more curious than anything. But he could not find her. Amongst the throng of the town, the screaming children and the giggling teens. He could not find her.

The next day winter ended and the girl was once again gone.

The next year when winter hit, he knew that things would be different. He felt it in his core. He snuck out the instant everyone begun to sing.

On the first day he stood at the edge and yelled and yelled until his voice grew hoarse. The next day when the ice was thicker he took a step out to the lake and yelled. The neck day another step. As the ice thickened towards the centre he walked closer and closer. But she was still ever just a bit too far.

But soon winter began to end and the thick ice began to thin. He could not go further in. He was much more heavier than he was as a child. He was close to the edge where he fell into the water. His heart was troubled. He knew another step would be another plunge.

Winter ended, and he did not reach her yet again. He would have to think this through.

The young boy began to grow into a man.

On his eighteenth summer he decided to make a raft. He was finished by wintertime. He propped it up near his home, and came winter he paddled his way towards her. Paddling over ice was no mean feat. It was hard work. Every inch he made took effort and time. Oh, so much time. But slowly, he kept on and on until he hit something solid. He looked up. She looked down at him, the raft at her feet. She was shinning, beautiful, unreal. They stared at each other, her white hair simmered and blended into the snowy backdrop. Her shoes looked like they were crafted out of the ice in the lake. She bent down towards him. Shimmering, shimmering, and held out her hand.

Without thought he took it. He felt as though he was watching himself in a dream. He stood up and stepped out of his raft. The ice was thin, but he wasn’t thinking about that.

“… I don’t know how to dance,” he said as he realised what was about to happen. She placed her hand on his shoulder and her hand on his hip. “I can barely sing. I don’t know anything about dancing!” he said again to her in disbelief. She giggled… at least it was what it looked like. It sounded like snow falling. She silenced him with a finger to his mouth.

Then they began. She swayed and he followed. Soon they were dancing like it was all he knew how to do. He would have never suspected after all those years of watching and imagining being on the ice with her that he would be a perfectly fine dancer.

The next day she was waiting by the edge of the lake for him. He rushed towards her, took her outstretched hand and off they waltzed.

The next few winters the children began to grow. Young adults found new jobs in the cities faraway, men began to grow into older men. Winter after winter the old people of the town grew older.

Soon there were less people huddled together, singing songs that would soon be forgotten. Sid didn’t notice. Or even if he did notice, he probably didn’t care. He fished the fish in the summer, tended to the crops in the fall. The trees would bloom their flowers, white flower petals that would dance at his feet as he walked by, reminding the man of snow. How he longed for winter. Soon the people of his age begin to disappear. They went off to towns and found spouses and started families. His parents worried for what would become of him. All he wanted and waited for was for the next winter to come.

The young man grew older.

The old grew older and then they were no more. There were less people in the town, the winters colder and longer, the lake smaller and smaller. A few of the townsfolk urged him to move out. While he was still young, while he still could. He refused. He simply had to stay. His parents needed him he said. When his parents were gone he reasoned with them again. The town needs him he replied. Some people his age even come back to ask him to leave with them. But no. He would not. When winter came around he was never in the town hall, his lack of presence was well noted, but still the townsfolk sang.

The man grew into an old man.

Soon one summer, no one was left.

When the last leaves fell and the snow began to fall, she did not come. He waited by the lake and there was no sign of her. Weeks he waited, and there was no girl.

Days turned into weeks into months into years. She never showed up.

Loneliness is an emptiness which gnaws at your heart. Eating you away into nothing. Sid felt loneliness like he would never feel anything else ever again. A cold agony. Day after day he went to the lake, during all seasons. He yelled into the pond, Where are you? Where did you go? Why are you not here? Why am I not with you?

The old man grew into an even older man.

The town began to cave in neglect. He ate his meagre meals, and drank his plain drinks, and the town once so beloved fell into ruins around him. But all he could feel was the crumbling of his own heart that his own beloved would not appear. Winds blew and the colours that once brightened the walls dulled. The man felt himself dull with his surroundings. Every winter he would wait. But she would not come. He called out, and she would not come.

One winter day the snow was heavy and the winds grew strong and blew off a bit of the roof on the town hall. Standing on the edge of the lake he watched as it flew past him and landed quite a distance away. He turned around to see the town aging around him. He never really realised. He felt a sudden twang as his heart went to the neglected ruins.

His feet were steady as he walked towards the hall. He went inside, the door slamming shut behind him. He hoped maybe when summer came around he could patch it up. He found himself in the middle of the floor looking up in the ceiling, wondering if he could patch it up. He felt himself linger in the memories of sneaking out while everybody sang.

The notes were all different, the tunes were never the same, but out of it all, it became one giant cacophony of a single song.

The wind blew into the hall, filling it with noise. Noise like the songs that he used to know.

And then he knew. He knew what was wrong. He knew what was missing. He rushed out of the room, he was still a very able old man, able to fish and harvest crops by himself after all. He stood by the edge of the icy wonder. He took a deep breath. He opened his mouth and he sang. His voice was croaky, and his tune did not hold. His notes made no sense in his progression. He sang fearfully, tunelessly to a song that he could hardly remember, but with a hope so strong in his heart.

That she would come. Come back to him.

In the middle of the lake, something shimmered. From nothing, just shimmering, like snow, gently falling into view. She appeared, shimmering, shimmering and held out her hand.

In an instant they were once again dancing on the frozen lake, alone in their own world, dancing to a singular song, a tuneless drone that went on and on and on.