The World's A Snowflake

I stare blankly into the computer screen, and I can see my reflection peering back at me. I try to focus my eyes on the text, on the numbers, but I can’t seem to keep my mind straight. It’s been a long week, for sure, and I forgot to grab my coffee this morning. I find myself zoning out and jumping quickly between reality and a world of fantasy.

I grab my mouse and can finally read the words on the screen. It’s the same thing as it always is. The same thing every day, all day long. I do not enjoy my job, but I have no choice at this point. It pays the bills, and that’s what matters.

Typing as fast as I can, I look at the clock. I say it out loud, or else I will forget in a matter of minutes. “4:45. Fifteen minutes left.”

My coworkers pace around, all waiting to go home. Home to their families. Home to have a weekend of relaxation. It’s a dream we all wish to have, to be home all the time. Instead we are all stuck in this hole of work and numbers and due dates and way to much coffee.

The dinning of the clock sends everyone rushing to grab their things and get out. I hit enter and do the same. Almost sprinting to catch the elevator, I cram next to everyone on the long ride to the first floor. We all wave goodbye at the parking lot, but I know I look dead inside, and I don’t care, because all my coworkers do too.

I hop in my car and turn up the news. I don’t like music. It doesn’t give you any useful information. I pull out of the parking garage and onto the highway. After a few miles, I turn off onto the exit that reads, “Los Angeles Hospital”

Pulling up to the intimidating building is a fright, but it’s second nature to me now. I pay for parking and head inside. Everyone waves a friendly hello to me, and I return it back to them. I can almost name every person in this facility. They are like a second family to me.

I find the room I’m looking for and knock on the door. A faint voice from inside calls me in.

“Hello.” I say to the man on the bed. His bald head was once a head of beautiful brown hair. His once strong arms are now weak, and have so many IV’s in them that it looks like something out of a movie.

“Hey, sis.” He raises one hand, and sets it back on his lap.

“How are you feeling today?” I pull up a chair and sit down next to him.

“I’m OK. A little tired, but OK.” He shuffles himself up on the bed to get comfortable. “How was work today? Was anyone annoying? Did someone spill their coffee? Was there any gossip? Spill the beans, come on!” He cracks a smile. He likes to know what’s going on at my work, for some reason.

I give a little laugh. “Nothing new today, sorry.”

“Really? There can’t be nothing. An eight-hour workday, five days a week, and nothing interesting happens?”

“Nope, other than today I forgot my cup of Joe and almost fell asleep at my work desk.”

“Oh, not the bean juice!” He starts to laugh, and looks right into my eyes. I can’t hold my laugh either, and we both start cracking up. When we calm down, he looks out the window at the park below.

“Hey, sis. Do you remember when mom and dad were going to take us up to Canada, so we could see the snow?”

I do remember that. We were about a month away from leaving when he got sick. Everything changed after that. I don’t want to talk about it, so I change the subject, and we laugh for hours. It’s good to laugh now and then.

It comes time for me to leave, and I get in my car and pull back on the highway. It’s getting tight for when I have to be back at the apartment, so I start to speed, and at one point accidentally cut someone off. They lay on their horn, and I honestly can’t be bothered. I continue like nothing happened.

I pull up to my apartment and park the car for the last time today. I go up the elevator and into my room. Inside, my roommate was kind enough to make us supper, finally. I have had to come home every night for the past week after a long day of work, and still have to have the energy to make a meal for two.

She tries to start-up a conversation. “Hi, Sophia. I made us mac and cheese. Did you get some time to see Lee today?”

I take no time to shoot it down. “Yeah, I saw Lee. He is doing just about as good as he usually is. Now, I need some time to myself, so can you keep it down for a bit, OK?”

I take the bowl of microwaved mac and cheese and head off to my bedroom. Realizing I forgot a fork, I go back out to the kitchen and grab one. After about thirty minutes and an empty bowl, I finally have the courage to pull open my closet.

Inside is a machine I built myself with only one purpose in mind. My brother has said the same thing ever since he ended up in the hospital. His only wish is to see snow. That’s it. Snow. Something so simple is actually surprisingly hard to get in Los Angeles.

So I designed something to bring the snow to him. This machine crates a thermal protector over wherever it is activated, in my case, all across Los Angeles. It’s metal frame and giant radio dish make it big and bulky, but I have found a way to hide it from my roommate, but I’m not sure for how much longer. Tomorrow is a weekend, so I can go and see Lee at the hospital then. I can finally bring him the thing he has always wanted.

I flip the big switch on the front panel. It starts buzzing and making lots of noise. It was suppose to do that. I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. The noise will stop after about fifteen minutes, the usual time it takes me to have a shower. It will mask the hum coming from my closet. I hop in and begin to wash myself off.

Twisting the knob of the shower, I step out. Wrapping myself in my towel, I put my head to the door. The noise has settled. I dry myself off and slip on my pajamas. Settling into bed is my favorite part of the day. I can put everything and all the idiots of the world behind me. All the worlds problems no longer relate to me. People are smart. We will find a way to fix everything we screwed ourselves into. It can’t be that hard to undo what has been done.

With the bustling of the cars below and the clang of my roommate doing the dishes, the world begins to slow. My brother will be happy tomorrow. He gets the thing he has always wanted, and it’s all thanks to me.

Alarm clocks suck. They wake you up when you want it least. That’s what it’s doing now, and I don’t have the energy to roll over a few feet to hit it’s button on top. After listening to it for a solid five minutes, I cave in and slam my hand on top, and it get’s the message. I sit up and realize what has happened. The shutters fly up with such force it’s almost frightening. Glaring below, I can see the one thing I have worked to see for years. A snowflake. Then another. Inches of them piled on the ground. People looking confused, but it’s OK. It’s all OK.

It works.

My roommate is running around frantically when I open my bedroom door. She is whispering things to herself that I can’t quite hear. Grabbing the keys off the counter, I wave a goodbye and head off to the hospital. The radio is going on and on about how it never snows in L.A, let alone in the middle of summer. It’s a little slipperier on the road than I thought, and I finally understand why she was panicking. It is cold and slippery out, but it doesn’t matter. What matter is that I can see my one and only brother.

I pull up to the parking lot, and almost no one is here. Stepping inside, I don’t see many people in either. Staff or patients. They are all gone. Well, there are a few, but half that there usually is.

Knock on the door, and the quiet voice lets me in. Pull up the usual chair and sit down. He is looking at me, and doesn’t know to be happy, confused, scared, or all at the same time.

“Hello.” I whisper to him.

He keeps looking at me. After a long time, he turns to the window. “Do you know why it’s snowing? In the summer of all time, too.”

“I did it.”

“No, don’t lie to me, Sophia. You arn’t mother nature. You can’t change the weather.”

“But I can. And I did.”

“OK. Jokes up now. I don’t know what’s going on, so can you tell me please.”

“I did this for you. I have spent years making this come true.” He still is not convinced. I can see it in his eyes. “Look. You said you always wanted snow, so that’s what I got you.”

“What? Did you recruit an entire team of scientist or something?”

“I did it all myself. It creates a dome that lets very little heat in, and therefore makes it snow, and the best part? Only in L.A. Only here is it snowing in the middle of summer. I wanted to make you happy.”

He looks away from me for a second. “You did make me happy.”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here and finally have a day in the snow.”

We do just that. The nurse let’s us leave, and we make snowmen and frolic in the cold winter-like chill. We laugh until we can no longer breathe.

It’s the best day of my life.

Walking back to my car, I think of what we can do tomorrow. We can do so many things, like make snow angels, or get food coloring and dye the snow.

My car is freezing cold, and the heater is trying it’s absolute best to change that. The radio comes on and the news begins to play.

“It’s almost like a winter wonderland here in L.A, but not many people seem to be feeling it. Scientists say they don’t know what caused for the sudden blizzard, but health experts have something important they want to get out. The roads are extremely slippery. There have already been at least forty-five crashes and thirteen confirmed deaths. Health officials are warning people to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel.”

Is that why no one was inside the hospital today? Were they all busy with all the people?

My car begins to swerve, and I hold the wheel tight and try to gain control. After a bit, I am back to a straight line. All the other cars are going well below the speed limit, so I do the same. It takes me much longer to get back to the apartment.

Tossing the keys on the counter, I go to hang up my coat and glance around. My roommate is not here now. It’s getting late, so I make some dinner for both of us, and put hers in the fridge. After mine is finished, I get ready for bed.

Covers over my head and the lights out, but something is keeping me from my sleep. My mind is swirling with all these thoughts that I can’t pinpoint what it is that’s scaring me. That’s keeping me up.

My eyes fly open as I realize. The machine. The snow. People are dying because of this, and I should turn it off. Feet in my pathetic bunny slippers, I get up and swing the closet door open. I go to flick the switch, but something else stops me. It’s another voice saying to leave it on, that I can go see my beloved brother again, and we can be happy together.

Now the voices are battling. One says turn it off, the other says leave it on. One says that it should be turned off for the better of the city, for the better of the people living here. The other says that I can do all the fun things I wanted to do with Lee, with my sick brother, the only family I have left. They start yelling and everything starts to cloud. I make my way back to bed and pass out the second I lay down.

The light coming in from my window binds me enough to wake me up before my alarm can. I go to my closet to grab my clothes and I see it again. I didn’t turn it off. It’s still making it cold. It’s still working.

If I turn it off now, the snow should melt my afternoon, and the voices come back, louder than ever, forcing me to pick a side.

“People are dying because of you!”

“You have never been this happy in all your life! Everyone else seems to be having it so great. Maybe you should keep it on just to make them feel how you felt when everything fell apart. The world needs to toughen up. Leave it on. You deserve a little fun.”

Next thing I know, I’m standing in the elevator heading down to the first floor. I didn’t turn it off. I didn’t know what to do, so I just left. Besides, I do deserve a little fun and the world needs to learn to deal with things.

I step out and am about to head for the parking garage when I’m kicked down to the floor. I try to get up when someone sits on my back. I’m stuck. I look up to see who is doing it when I catch my roommate looking right at me.

“Good mornig Sophia.” She gives me a wave. The smug look on her face tells me that she knows something.

She continues on. “That’s a nice shirt you got on there. Where did you get it? Your closet, maybe?”

I then realize who’s on top of me. It’s a police officer. She called the cops on me.

“What are you doing?” My voice is rough, probably because I’m on the floor with a man on top of me. “You must be making a mistake!”

“Why did you have a thing in your closet labeled. ‘Snow Machine’, and it seems to be on? You have a thing in your closet that makes snow, I can only assume, and now it starts to snow. In the middle of summer, let me mind you.”

“Please, I can explain everything.”

“You had the option to turn it off. I know you keep the news on your car, so you would have heard what chaos you have caused the city.”

“Please, it’s not like that.”

The cop speaks up now. “Is this true, what she says? You have a machine that is making it snow, and you concisely decided to leave it on?”

I’m pinned. No matter what I say, they can just go upstairs and see that there is in fact a snow machine in my closet. I can’t get out of this now.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“Why would you do this?” His voice is deep and loud.

I am on the break of tears. “I just wanted to make my brother happy. He always wanted to see the snow, so I -”

The man pulls me off the ground. This gives me a moment of hope. He might let me go. He might see what I was trying to do and think it’s OK.

It’s not OK. He drags me out to his police cruiser and tells me to get in the back seat. That an investigation team is on the way, and if things are as bad as they seem, I could end up in jail.

I never thought it would go like this. I always thought I would be at least somewhat successful in my life. That I would be a good person and live a good life.

Clearly I was wrong.