The Winter

It was winter and the snow was falling, and the children were allowed to stay home from school, so they roamed the streets at random. Wrapped in so many coats and scarves that they could not be identified by their own mothers, they hurled handfuls of ice at unknown adversaries and took cover behind amorphous white lumps that may have once been cars.

I stayed indoors when the snow fell, paranoid about icy roads and boots that had long ago lost their grip. In my mind I saw a footstep coming down and not gaining friction, a half-graceful slide from front door to roadside that would end with a clattering fall and smashed bones.

So, I stayed in. Stoked the fire and bashed away at my typewriter, hoping that the madness would lift and I could embark on a slow, careful voyage to the local market, to look at the dead fish and hanging racks of pork flesh. The snow eventually stopped sometime after dark, though it can’t truly be said to have been light at any point in recent memory. I wrapped strings around my most watertight shoes for extra grip, held my jacket around myself and stepped out into the cold.

The streetlights flickered as if the power running to them was reluctant to traverse the frozen wires, and at first I didn’t see the massed shapes that filled the lane. Turning to lock the door with shaking fingers, my eyes began to adjust, and as I rotated back and took my first step, they loomed into view; hundreds of man-size shapes with crooked, thin arms and vile, sharp noses. I gasped, the air frosting in front of my face like a physical incarnation of my terror.

Every snowman had the same face. Wide-eyed coals and uniform carrot noses. The children had been busy.