Melting Ice

Hanson was afflicted by a mischievous little thief. Not a normal thief—the situation might’ve almost been better if that had been the case, because then Hanson could’ve called the police and been done with it, but no: this thief didn’t break in and steal his laptop or kitchen knives or whatever thieves were supposed to steal, they took the icicles from his roof. How was Hanson supposed to call the police and, without coming across as a madman, tell them that a tiny person who regularly wore tight pants with rainbow belts was stealing his ice?

Hanson blamed his house.

5482 East St. W. was an old building, sans gutters; Hanson had bought the place like that. Once purchased, he’d seen no need to call someone to install gutters, since whoever came would no doubt stomp all over and spy on his property in the process. 

It wasn’t an issue in the summer: he quite liked the sound of rain dripping past his windows and roaring off the high ridges and valleys when it poured. It was winter when problems started amassing: the roof was shot and he’d been putting off getting it replaced to avoid talking to the roofing people, but he’d have to schedule to get it done this coming summer because nooks and crannies in the overhanging shingles urged a curtain of ice to develop that made looking out the bay window like peering out of the maw of some sharp-toothed beast.

At least, until three weeks ago on Tuesday. Hanson worked from home, wrapped in no less than fifty blankets—since it was cheaper to keep the thermostat down in the winter—and sitting at the bay window, because that let him watch the street from between the bars of his prison without anyone coming up to him. At 1:30, he’d regrettably left his nest to heat up leftover takeout Chinese in the kitchen while shivering. He’d been carrying the plate and a pair of chopsticks back to the bay window when he’d seen a small stranger in their mid-twenties walking up his driveway, their long black hair tied up in a bun, hands shoved into the pockets of a thick, oversized black coat with silver zippers that glinted blindingly in the light like the ice on his roof. Hanson had immediately glanced to the road, expecting a FedEx or UPS truck even though he hadn’t ordered anything off the Internet recently.

The road had been empty.

The stranger had turned off onto the front path and Hanson, standing in the doorway of his living room, had a moment to think, Oh no, someone’s about to try and sell me stuff, have they seen me yet or can I still run and hide and pretend I’m not home? before they were up the steps, their dark eyes on the corner of Hanson’s roof. They’d leaned over the side railing, one pale hand slipping out of their pocket to fix around the biggest icicle at the corner of the roof, hanging a foot and a half long at least. A tug pulled it free with a quiet crack.

The stranger’s pleased smile as they regarded their trophy had been blinding.

Then they’d turned around, icicle in hand, and moseyed away—down the path and driveway—turning right once they got to the road and strolling off.

Hanson had only been able to stare. He knew he didn’t know that person, because he didn’t know anyone in this neighborhood; he avoided people like the plague, only going out when absolutely necessary.

Why were they taking his stuff?

The stranger had come back the next day while Hanson had been in the bathroom. When he came out, still drying his hands on his pants, he’d seen the little thief making their way back down the drive, another icicle in hand as they left. Their hair was up again and they wore the same jacket, but instead of jeans, they had on tight black pants, cuffed at the bottom to show bare, skinny ankles over low-cut lime green socks that were hiding in their gray Vans, accentuating how very improperly dressed for winter they were.

Hanson had looked at the icicles in front of his window.

Another tooth had been missing from the monster’s mouth.

He’d sputtered inelegantly, dashing across the living room, fully intending to muscle open the frozen window and yell after the stranger. The window, however, had been frozen shut, ice cementing it closed, and by the time Hanson had the idea to pound on the glass, the stranger had disappeared.

Thievery! Hanson had thought furiously.

The stranger knew about Hanson, too, and didn’t even pretend that they didn’t see him sitting there: the third time they’d come up—the third time Hanson saw it, because he’d been out of state for a few days at a family gathering his mother had forced him to attend—Hanson had the flu. He’d taken too much Nyquil because he hated being sick, and he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube, somehow ending up watching videos by an Australian cheesemaker, lulled into drowsiness by the drip of water running down the ridges of thick icicles and falling from their points to plink against the ground.

When he’d heard the gentle crack of ice snapping, he’d looked up sleepily, and the stranger—there in all their impish, honey-eyed glory, one arm outstretched to grab their prize—had winked at him before leaving, juggling the burning cold icicle between their bare hands.

Hanson had blinked after them blearily. He’d thought it’d been a fever dream for a few days, until he got better and it happened again.

Hanson refused to think of it as cute or charming, even though his heart started racing every time the stranger came up and took too long to calm down after they left. No—he was going to figure this stranger out, methodically and impassively, so he could make them fuck off.

He worked out that they took walks every day, always passing his house at around 1:30, only coming up when an icicle grew longer than a foot. They simply waved, unperturbed, when Hanson pounded on the window to dissuade them, which he couldn’t even do all that often because the stranger had an uncanny knack for sauntering up while he was distracted doing something else—cleaning the cupboards, or taking toasted peanuts out of the oven to make apam balik, or swearing at his can opener when it refused to open a can of Thai Kitchen coconut milk for curry while his potatoes burned on the stove.

Day by day, his dam of icicles got more and more lopsided, and Hanson got more and more frustrated that the little thief was still at large, not bothering anyone else with their tight clothes and glittering, friendly smile that Hanson was starting to not-entirely-hate.

On Friday it was warm, forty degrees at least, and icicles broke and fell, shattering against the ground. Though Hanson spent his entire afternoon staring outside in anticipation of seeing the stranger instead of working, they didn’t walk by as usual.

Hanson tried to tell himself that the disappointed beat in his chest was actually happiness, from peace and quiet at last. He didn’t—wouldn’t—miss a tiny criminal.

He still went to bed that night worrying if they were okay.

Saturday morning’s sun illuminated a frozen wasteland, the temperature dipping below zero with the fickle weather, misery finally forcing Hanson to turn on the heater, the devil on his shoulder goading him to set it all the way up to seventy degrees, whispering in his ear that he deserved it. Outside, a solid sheet of ice had half-slid down his roof in the middle of the night to hang in front of his window, long icicles like claws at the edge. Hanson spent his morning anxious that it would pull his whole roof off with the weight, wondering if he should go out with a shovel and finally knock it all down.

Google told him to leave it, unless he wanted to tear the shingles off his roof.

At lunch time, he was waffling between his kitchen and living room as he waited for his oven to preheat, his coat on as the house warmed up, when he saw chunky tan combat boots coming up the drive. Hanson nearly leapt out of his socks.

 Little Thiefy Thief McThieferson was here! Hanson nearly tripped over a chair as he lunged for his shoes, throwing open the side door of his house with a burst of adrenaline.

The stranger had reached the juncture between the driveway and the front path, their head turning at the racket, and Hanson took advantage of this to stick out a finger and screech, “You!”

The little thief stopped. They blinked once, twice, and then splayed a hand on their chest, blocking out the bold yellow letters of their Sean Cody tank top, an innocent smile spreading across their face. “Me?”

Hanson made it all the way over, chest-to-chest with the stranger—or, chest-to-face, because they really were very short—before the energy fizzled out of his blood, leaving him abandoned and balking: what was he doing? He didn’t know how to talk to people!

“Hi,” the thief said pleasantly.

It took Hanson a moment to get his brain working. He meant to say, Stop stealing my stuff! but his mouth had other ideas and he ended up saying instead, so plaintively he was disgusted with himself, “Where were you yesterday?”

The stranger’s expression melted into genuine surprise. “Yesterday?” They blinked. “I had a doctor’s appointment. Where were you yesterday?”

“I was here!” Hanson said, his heart beating too fast. “You—and—and nobody was here….” Glancing around, he shut his mouth with a click of his teeth, mortified, thinking furiously about what he was trying to say, the stranger waiting patiently. Once he had it, he stuck out his finger again, glaring. “Stop stealing my stuff!”

He must’ve said it too loudly, as he was sometimes wont to do, because the little thief’s eyes widened and they leaned back slightly, making Hanson flush with humiliation and want to apologize. Before he could, they looked up the path with surprise, giving Hanson a good eyeful of the sharp cut of their jaw and the straight line of their nose before they looked back at him. 

“Your stuff?”

“My—my icicles,” he spluttered. “Who says you get to just walk, walk up here and take stuff? This is my property, I don’t know you!”

“Oh, well, hello.” The stranger stuck out their hand, leaving Hanson to stare at it once he could tear his eyes away from their dazzling smile. “I’m Fish. I live three blocks down. You know the house with the giant pride flag out in front?”

Hanson didn’t know how he could not know that house; he’d nearly crashed his car coming back from getting groceries when he’d first seen it a couple weeks ago, unable to stop staring.

“That’s me, you should come visit some time. All the neighbors came to say ‘Hi’ when I moved in a couple weeks ago, except for you.”

“That house wasn’t even for sale.”

“Well, no. It’s my parents’. But my dad’s an architect and he built this gigantic new place in Minnetonka, so they gave this one to me. Anyway, what’s your name?” Their hand was still out, unwavering, and after a moment Hanson was forced to take it out of politeness. Fish shook it up and down too vigorously for an early Saturday afternoon.

“Hanson.”

“Hi, Hanson. How are you doing today?”

“Not great!” he snapped. “A little jerk keeps coming up my drive and stealing my icicles!”

Fish giggled at this and Hanson’s hackles raised, sure he was getting laughed at.

“Did you want them?” they asked, leaning forward slightly, eyebrows raising in interest, their alarmingly cold hand still wrapped around Hanson’s. “I didn’t know. I was using them as a skeleton to building a palisade in front of my house so I can wreck the next-door neighbors’ kids when we have snowball fights. They were just sitting there so tempting, and you looked so lonely in the window.”

Hanson sputtered indignantly, trying to extricate his hand from Fish’s sturdy grip. He could feel his pulse pounding under his skin, terrified that he was going to screw this conversation up like he always did, and for some reason, he very much didn’t want that to happen. “I’m not lonely!”

“No?” they had the gall to ask. “The neighbors say you stay inside all the time and barely come out, and I thought to myself, Oh, Fish, you’ve got to help that poor man. So here I am!” They let go to spread their arms wide as if to hug the world before stuffing their hands into their coat pockets, hiding a shiver as a cold breeze blew past.

“I don’t—I don’t need help. And, and why is your name Fish? That’s not a proper name.”

“Well, it’s mine. Why’s your name Hanson?”

“Because nobody here can pronounce Huiqing,” he snapped.

Fish’s eyes widened imperceptibly right before they laughed, their breath coming out in puffs of white, teeth flashing in the sun, their cheeks bunching up and making their eyes squint thin with amusement.

“Well, Huiqing,” they said, shifting their weight back and then forward again. “I like ‘Fish.’ And it’s yú in Mandarin, which sounds like ‘you’ in English, which I think is hilarious. Like that bit in Rush Hour 3 where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker go to the kung fu studio. Have you seen?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Fish sighed sympathetically, reaching out to wrap a hand around his arm as Hanson stared incredulously. Their short, neat fingernails were painted a glittery lilac purple that caught the light and shone with white, almost yellow, highlights as they moved. “I’m so sorry. You have no idea what you’re missing. You need to watch it. I bet I can bootleg it for you; it’s not on U.S. Netflix, but I’m a master at bootlegging. Do you have a pen? I can give you my phone number to send it to you.”

“You…” Hanson sputtered, “you can’t just… you can’t just give out your phone number like that, someone’s going to steal your identity!”

Fish cocked their head. “Whatever on Earth would they use it for?”

“I don’t know, stealing your money or getting a job in your name or something—”

“Do you need money?” Fish asked. They let go of him to bury their hands back in their pockets, tucking their elbows very neatly against their thin sides as the wind blew open their unzipped coat. Hanson could see small goosebumps popping up on their long neck. “I can give you twenty bucks. If you want more, though, you’re going to need to unlock the next level of friendship.”

“We’re—we’re not friends—”

“It’s too late,” Fish said, that pretty smile slipping back on their face—not pitying like how Hanson’s family looked at him, nor distrustful like how people in stores looked at him; just happy and open and free—and they quickly captured one of Hanson’s hands before he could shy away and patted it gently. “Introverts get adopted by extroverts, that’s how it works. Here.” They unfurled his fingers and clicked open a pen they must’ve found in their pocket, writing big looping numbers across Hanson’s palm. “That’s my phone number. Text me if you want, or you can even call if you’re feeling brave. I’ll send you the link to watch Rush Hour online. You’ll like it. It’s an action comedy, and it has Jackie Chan in it. Who doesn’t like Jackie Chan? Or if you have shitty Wi-Fi, you can come over and we can watch it at my house. I can nick the DVD from Dad’s place, I bet.”

Fish graciously gave back Hanson’s hand, burying their fists once more into their pockets and hunching their shoulders against another gust of wind.

Hanson looked at the blue ink on his palm, his stomach fluttering strangely. “And what, if I watch it, you’ll stop stealing my icicles?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I came out here to tell you to stop. Google says you’re going to wreck my roof.”

“Oh, well that’s not good,” Fish said, shifting their weight again and pulling their jacket closed against the cold. “I guess I have to stop, then, or you’ll sue me for property damage.”

“No, I—” started Hanson, before he realized he had no idea where he was going with that and forced his mouth shut even though Fish was regarding him curiously now, head tilted. This person was supposed to be annoying, not likeable and attractive and so easily delighted by Hanson, despite how obviously gauche he was.

“Well,” said Fish, smiling, taking a step back. “I’ll accept this wonderful interaction today in place of an icicle and I’m going to take my leave because, to put it succinctly, I’m fucking freezing.”

“Maybe if you wore proper clothes you wouldn’t be,” Hanson pointed out.

They laughed. “Oh, darling. Huiqing. There is no such thing as ‘proper’ in this world, don’t you know that?” 

“Wait,” Hanson blurted—spurred by an unfamiliar spark of bravery in his veins—before they could drift away, like a dream right after he woke up. “Um. If you’re super cold, you can, you can come inside. I put on the heat and was going to make cookies.” He felt stupid immediately after suggesting it, but Fish’s face lit up with a grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s.

“Oh,” they said, coming back up the drive and wrapping their hand around Hanson’s elbow like a genteel aristocrat, their face tilted up and pleased, the expression somehow warming Hanson more than his coat did. “Alright. I like the sound of that. Lead the way, good sir.”