I take pride in being cool and collected. I’m a Snow Man, after all. But something at the very core of me cracks. It’s always cracking, and I find myself longing for something that is not at all becoming of a Snow Man—the hot stove!

I look through the window of the house and I think, if only I could just be near that warm stove, I would give up everything. I would melt and run to the gutter!

The Snow Man in The Snow Man, Hans Christian Andersen. Illustration by Michelle Tocher.