Summer Snow

What in the world? Rubbing her eyes, Maggie admonishes herself for all the late-night cleaning and tidying the house. They’re falling faster now. This is not possible. Stepping out the back door, she marvels. Lifting her hands and feeling the fat flurries, she closes her eyes, hugging herself. How could it suddenly be this cold and snowing?

Amy bounds out the door and whoops. “It worked, Momma, it worked! It’s snowing!”

“What worked?”

“You told me to ask God for the things I desire. He did it!”

“You asked for snow in August?” Maggie sees the goosebumps on her daughter’s arms. “Hm, I suppose you’ll need your winter clothes and a sled.”

Amy jumps up and down, clapping.

They run to the basement and pull winter clothes from the seasonal bins, and Maggie roots through the closet and emerges with two sleds. After building three small snowmen, making snow angels, and a neighborhood snowball fight, they cuddle under a blanket, watching tv with bowls of soup and sandwiches.

Though the sun set before the movie ended, Amy pleads, “Let’s go back out.”

“How about a walk?”

Amy runs to the hallway closet, throws her mom’s coat to her, wiggles into hers, and stands at the door with an expectant glance back at her mother who zips her coat.

“Well, I sure don’t need to ask if you’re ready.”

Before climbing into bed that night, Amy must have looked out the window twenty times to make sure it was still snowing. The moment she opens her eyes, she runs to the window. It’s still snowing!

Before dinner Amy and her parents watch the news for an update on the snow. The anchorwoman informs viewers that the current level is just over three feet with two more hours of snow coming. “Scientists claim that this freak phenomenon caused the rash of tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes reported yesterday and today.”

With trembling lip, Amy asks, “Is all that stuff my fault?”

Her father pulls her onto his lap and holds her.

That night when Maggie kisses her daughter good night and turns off the light, a silhouetted male figure with charred hands presses the button turning off his monitor. “I love when little ones help me.” 

A rumbling blender sound, the equivalent of human laughter, emanates from another male.

“Who’d’ve thought something as innocent as snow could wreak such damage?” The toothless mouth smiles.

Before Amy and her parents can wake, they disappear. Reports of missing people flood the news stations. While friends and loved ones call and text and worry, first responders search for several days before surrendering the search. Without warning, all these people vanished, and there seems to be no trace of them.

Cackling at the dazed and dumbfounded people, the male being at the monitor caresses the screen. Though thousands of feet below, he feels the earth shift and shake above his head. “It’s all coming together. Soon it will all be mine. For real this time. They’ll all be mine. He won’t be able to stop me this time.” Rubbing his gnarled hands together, the cloaked being rises with a roar and grabs the red wall phone created for this purpose. Scratched on the wall beside it is the only phone number he would ever need. Over the years many men had this number, but now is the time, and he is the man destined for the job.

The next morning people on every continent wake and find animals they had never seen outside a zoo roaming their streets and foreign trees and plants. News stations declare the existence of a new Pangaea. Every digital device features a handsome thirty-something with black hair and equally dark eyes. “My fellow humans, a new era has begun. Whatever lies ahead, we will get through this together.”

“That’s all he’s going to say?” one of the beings asks the one at the monitor.

“That’s all they need to hear for now. I’ll give them a few days to get used to their new normal and throw in some surprises.”

“I can’t believe it was as simple as a child asking for snow.” A hissing, wheezing sound emanates from the being and others join with scratchy or thumping or screaming noises and some with noises so terrifying they stop human hearts.

Days later, wild animals eat humans, unseen beings claw human flesh, faucet water and bodies of water become blood, frogs and locusts multiply and eat crops, houses spontaneously combust, and humans loot homes and stores and ravage each other’s bodies.

On every device the dark-haired man with unnaturally dark eyes appears. “It’s with great urgency I must warn every person that all currency fails to perform its duty. From this day forward, in order to buy or sell anything, you must receive a microchip in your hand or forehead.”

For three-and-half years the man promises peace while secretly signing treaties and bills that ensure chaos, hatred, fear, rebellion, and revenge. He even invites people to follow him, to sacrifice all they own for him. During this time he orders henchmen to behead, gut, set on fire, crush, or shoot every traitor, every person who refuses to obey, any dissenter, anyone not in agreement with the new system.

Only vile, negative, hateful, derogatory, blasphemous, rebellious, and all other sorts of wicked ways fill the Earth. Hopeless and desiring death, many waste away. The being at the monitor watches with ever growing glee as people lose hope and embrace death.

One day the hopeless in every pitiful condition look up. Chained to trees, naked people, whipped and weak crumble to their knees in front of growling wolves. Some drag themselves under giant boulders, walking in circles until they fall exhausted, crushed by the boulders. Some hang upside-down from trees as target practice for knife throwers. People who had long been disillusioned, defeated, and brainwashed look up. Snow in August? How can this be? 

Infuriated, the cloaked figure at the monitor growls, knowing his time is short. Destroying people’s minds and bodies as quickly as he can and with the help of the man with the dark hair and eyes, the cloaked being keeps one eye on The Countdown Clock. It’s already been three years.

At the end of three-and-a-half years, the cloaked figure joins the dark-haired man on stage and dives into him. JThe indwelt man opens his mouth and blasphemes all that was once good. Then he requires that every person worship him. For three-and-a-half more years he devours the forced, empty worship.

Then the sky bursts open, and a shining figure riding a white horse leads hordes of white-robed beings on whites horses. As if waiting for this moment, kings and great warriors gather to kill the shining being and his army. With no effort on his part, the shining being seizes the indwelt man and touches the ground which opens, revealing a fiery pit thousands of feet below. Hissing, screaming, and cursing, the indwelt man plunges into the flames below. The armies congregated to defeat the shining man shrivel and dissolve.

Unaware of the turmoil caused by her request for snow, a girl far above dances and laughs, picking flowers in a field. For several minutes flurries fall around her and she marvels.