I wrote this from the bottom of my heart.
The Snow
By Oliver Clothesoff
“And keep those scarves handy,” the weatherman said. “Old Man Winter’s got another 14 inches of snow for us tonight!”
Mike turned off the TV. Just another day, he thought to himself. Will this winter ever end?
Hardly a day went by when snow didn’t fall. Yesterday, it was seven inches. The day before, three. And none of the snow was melting.
The snow dunes were already 142 billion feet high outside. Mike’s house had collapsed under the weight of the snow two months ago. 90 percent of the world’s population was dead. Mike already cannibalized most of his family and began eating his own legs to stay alive.
“Hey Mike, you wanna build a snowman?” asked his one-armed brother, Jimmy. “It’s snowing out!”
“Not right now, Jimmy,” Mike replied as he fortified his snow bunker with ice and the bones of dead relatives. “I have to make sure our dugout here doesn’t fall apart like the house. The snow just keeps getting heavier and heavier.”
“Well I’m bored!” Jimmy whined back.
“Then why don’t you go and work on our tunnel?” suggested Mike.
“Okay!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Let’s dig!”
The tunnel. Outside of a tiny porthole Mike made by poking PVC pipe through the snow to observe beyond the dune that buried his family, Mike hadn’t seen the light of day in weeks. So he and Jimmy started digging a tunnel. It was their only means of accessing the outside world, and it still wasn’t done. They were trapped inside a coffin of snow that would, Mike knew, eventually kill them both, unless they dug themselves out soon.
Because he had been underground for so long, Mike had developed a sense of sonar that told him the surface of their snow dune was near. Their tunneling was paying off. After weeks of digging, they were finally towards the end. They nearly had an escape.
After Mike finished strengthening the snow bunker, he grabbed a shovel. And he, too, dug.
“I’m hungry!” complained Jimmy.
“Well, let’s go have dinner then,” responded Mike.
They went back into their snow bunker. Mike opened the refrigerator door. “What do you want?” he asked. Jimmy took a minute to respond. “Jimmy?”
“I…” he sniffled, “I just want my mommy!” cried Jimmy, beginning to wail.
“Mom it is then,” replied Mike, removing a foot from the fridge. And then he cooked it.
They began to eat.
“Mike, this food is so tasteless! Yuck, it has no flavor!” complained Jimmy.
Mike knew how to fix the problem. Going to the herb rack, he grabbed a jar and said, “Here, add Rosemary.” Rosemary was their cousin.
And so Jimmy did. And he was happy. When they finished their meal, Mike could tell Jimmy was tired.
“It’s bed time, bud.” Mike said, seeing his brother yawn.
“But I’m not tired!” Jimmy contended.
“Yes you are,” Mike replied, grabbing Jimmy’s arm. He then took his brother by the neck and led him to the bedroom, where Jimmy fell quickly asleep. Then he ate the arm.
More snow fell, but the tunnel was almost done.
“Jimmy, wake up! I’m nearly through!” Mike barked in excitement.
“The snow?!” Jimmy replied excitedly.
“Yes, you retard, the snow! Come look!”
Out of bed in a flash, Jimmy ran to the end of the tunnel. 74 minutes later, he got there.
“Wow Mike! Looks like two more feet and we’re through!”
“Now be careful Jim, we must maintain the structural stability of the snow–”
“Awwww Mike, what’s the worst that can happen?” Jimmy asked in reply, chucking snow hither and thither.
“Jimmy! The tunnel will collapse! Nooooo!!!” A crunch, a smash. And Jimmy disappeared.
“Jimmy!!!” No response. “Oh Jimmy why? Jimmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”
“Miiiiiiiike”
“Wait what?”
“Mike come out here, I’m outside.”
“Oh.” Mike climbed through the hole and was outside the snow dune, too.
“See, the tunnel didn’t collapse, did it?”
“Huh, I guess not!” The ground shook imperceptibly, a low rumble. Mike turned around. “Ahhh shit.”
A couple second passed.
“Oh well, all that matters is that we’re outside now. We’re free, we’ve escaped!”
“So, now what?” asked Jimmy.
“So now…we get rid of this snow…and we save the world.”
“What have you scavenged?” Mike asked Jimmy.
Jimmy presented three twigs, a mirror, a raccoon and a pair of reading glasses.
“Good work, bro!” Mike exclaimed. “But we’re going to have to let the raccoon go.”
“Can’t we keep it as a pet?” inquired the younger sibling.
“Keep a wild animal as a pet? No, that’s cruel. It could get hurt. Just let it go.” And Jimmy did.
Mike took the mirror, the glasses and the twigs and looked at them for a moment. Then he had an idea.
“Jimmy, I have an idea,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s when someone thinks of a way to do something. Now, take these twigs and rub them together to start a fire.” Jimmy went to do as he was told.
Now, Mike thought to himself, taking the mirror and glasses in hand. All I have to do is this, this, and that, and this, and…done!
He’d made a contraption, but before he used it, he went to see how Jimmy was doing.
“Jimmy, why don’t you have a fire going yet?” he asked.
“I’m trying, Mike!” Jimmy responded, one twig in his mouth, the other in his hand and the third under the stump of what was his arm. “It’s not working!”
“Do it like this,” Mike said, grabbing two of the twigs. He rubbed them together twice and a weak flame erupted. “See? Now throw the third twig onto our little fire – carefully! – good!”
The fire slowly grew in size and intensity. “Perfect!” said Mike. ”Now all we need are some marshmallows.”
“Now what?” Jimmy queried.
“Okay, we have this fire here…the Sun there…and this!” Mike revealed his handiwork, a light-magnification reflector device.
“What does it do?” asked his brother.
“Well,” Mike explained, “these glasses will hopefully magnify the light of the Sun and the heat from the fire and that light and heat should reflect off the mirror. We’ll use the light waves and heat waves to melt all the snow!”
“Will it work?”
“Let’s see!” Mike turned the device toward the Sun and oriented it so the energy from the fire would be magnified as well. Then he cranked the primer, calibrated the turbocharger, started the auxiliary motors and initiated the main ignition sequence. Once the pistons were firing and the throttle was set, he pressed the “start” button and waited for the device to rev to life. A few seconds went by and nothing happened.
“Aw man! Mike!”
“Wait!” A small beam of light erupted from the device. It slowly got bigger and bigger.
“It’s working! Now let’s try this!” Mike angled the mirror toward the snow and the beam of light shot into it. The snow softened, turned to slush and melted.
And more and more started melting.
“Jimmy! Look! It’s going away!”
The longer Mike held the mirror, the stronger the beam became and the more snow turned to water.
“This is great! We’re saved!” Jimmy exclaimed.
But then the snow started melting too fast.
Trickles, then streams, then rivers of melted snow started forming and gushing and rushing right toward Mike and Jimmy!
At just the moment a newly formed river was about to wash them away, the fire, which had been growing nonstop since it was lit, was hit by a light beam from the mirror and burst into a towering inferno.
Seeing that, Mike said, “It’s okay, Jim. The fire will evaporate the water before it hits us!”
But instead it engulfed Jimmy and cooked him to death.
Mike could no longer control the mirror. The snow was melting quicker and quicker and within five minutes the entire world was under 100,000 miles of water and everyone drowned.
THE END
