Throwback Thursday: ‘Little Snowflake Girls’ by Dawn Lo

Families and Other Fragile Structures

‘In ‘Little Snowflake Girls’, Dawn Lo introduces us to a girl becoming a woman, navigating family, friends, and foreign climates. Enjoy the excerpt below, and pick up the full story in Pulp Literature Issue 28, Autumn 2020, on sale now till the end of April!

Little Snowflake Girls

Dawn Lo

Every weekday, after I make dinner, I wait at the parlour window for Big Sister to come home from work. Today, I have an even better time of it because snow has fallen. This is my fifth winter in Toronto, after Mother, Sister and I emigrated from Hong Kong. Snow has become my absolute favourite thing.

In the afternoon, the neighbourhood children dance and make snow angels like little darlings. When the sun sets and the sky greys into a frown, they take their laughter home. I wish they’d stayed for me to watch  into the evening, but now, at least, I can come out from behind the curtain. I can press my cheek against the chilly glass. Mother saw on TV that if you lick frozen doorknobs, your tongue gets stuck. What about windows? I lean against the cold windowpane, my nipples pricking, and I giggle. Steam forms on the glass around my mouth like a kiss. My tongue darts gecko-like against ice; then I launch myself back. Still intact! 

Last winter, I had gone outside on a snowy day like this. Only one boy from next door was out playing. I felt safe to go because I’d watched him grow up, so we were friends. He looked eight and a half. I nuzzled his little nose to get a better look at his green eyes that shone like Tai Tam Reservoir on a sunny day. His father found us. He asked me how old I was. He had to ask again when I didn’t answer, not because I don’t understand English, but because my thumping heart made it too hard to focus. When I told him nineteen, he frowned and took his boy away. 

Mother and Sister said I was lucky it was the father who found me; mothers are less forgiving. But also, maybe, it could have been unlucky. I don’t know what that means but Mother insisted that I be more careful: “Little snowflake girls ought to stay home.” That night, I imagined being the boy’s mother, holding his hand in bed because he was frightened. Or being the man’s wife, lying next to him, his body warm, a force, and then I had to go downstairs for some water.

I understand, now, I am too old to play with children. I watch from inside. They don’t see me behind the lace curtain. This is not hard; I am tall but very skinny, all limbs. When I fold up onto the bay window, I might look like an ironing board to them. Anyway, children only have eyes for the cotton clumps, the sparkle of sun on the white. I can understand if they don’t care to see me here.

Mother calls from the next room. “Are you wearing enough, Daughter?”

“Yes!” I say though my pyjama shirt and pants are thin cotton. I spin and spin until the blur of grey and blue curtains, carpets, and chairs mix into one. Mother is very smart. She learns many things from TV. From the moment she opens her eyes, the TV flickers on too. Right now, she is crocheting a sweater in her wheelchair and the TV in her room is on Fairchild, our only Cantonese channel. Mother doesn’t speak a lick of English. She cares only for her old life.

Read the rest of the story in Issue 28, Autumn 2020 …

Poets, it’s your time to shine. The 2026 Magpie Award for Poetry closes April 15th!