Snowmageddon

SNOWMAGEDDON

“No no no no no no!”

“—An Arctic river of snow has blown into our area, dropping over one hundred centimetres of snow in less that ten hours. That’s over forty inches of snow, folks! With an additional thirty centimetres still to come! The city is snowbound —”

“No! Please, no!”

Click.

“—All road traffic is prohibited until further notice—”

Click.

“—Snowmageddon. Snowpocalypse. Snowzilla. Whatever you want to call it, it’s here, and there’s still more coming. It’s not supposed to let up until late tomorrow morning—”

Click.

“—All roads are closed, and all flights are cancelled. No one is going anywhere. Emergency services cannot attend, EMTs are going to calls using snowmobiles. If you have an emergency—”

Click.

“—It’s a blizzard!!—”

“NOOOOO!”

Click.

“Shit!”

Cara turned off the television, and threw the remote control onto the couch. It bounced out, and struck her in the chest, bounced off her, and clattered to the floor. The back popped off, the batteries rolled across the carpet.

“Double shit!”

She picked up the pieces of the remote, reassembled it, carefully placed it beside the television, and sighed.

No getaway to the sun and fun this year. No getting away anywhere, if the weather reports were correct. She looked at her luggage piled neatly, waiting by the door.

Not going anywhere now, except back into the closet. She sighed again.

Walking over to the window, she looked out at the street. Well, she tried to look out the window, but the whipping snow had adhered to the screen, obscuring her view.  She opened the window and tapped on the screen, sending a small avalanche onto the floor below the window. Cara absently shut the window and used her foot to sop up the snow, her focus on the apocalyptic street scene appearing before her.

White. Lots and lots of white. As far as she could see. There was no road, no sidewalk — nothing recognizable. Just indistinct lumps of white. Only to tops of trees were visible, and then the branches were sagging under the weight of the snow. The cars parked along the street — and she knew there were cars there because there were always cars parked there — were were hidden by the snow, only their curved roofs visible above the snow. Even the building across the street from Cara’s condo was unidentifiable. The swirling, pelting snow that had obscured Cara’s windows had done the same to the other building, making the it indistinguishable from its surroundings — just another white shape, albeit bigger than those around it. This was a frozen hellscape.

There were no people to be seen, not a footprint in the pristine snow. What did you do if you had a dog? They had to go out, right? Or what if you hadn’t gotten to the market before snowmageddon? Did you starve? Cara continued to look for signs of life.

Cara’s apartment was on the second floor of a three storey walk-up, and the view was not promising from her window. She decided to run down to the lobby to check and see if there was any chance of being able to leave the building through the front door. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked from her apartment. 

Cara was amazed at the sight she saw. The entire front door and lobby windows were almost completely shrouded by the snow, giving the lobby a dull grey, almost eerie, cast.

Not a chance I can get out this way. 

As she was listening to the winds buffeting the front of the building, and wondering how strong the plate glass was, Cara heard something — a very faint something

“Help!”

She stood stalk-still, listening.

“Help! Please, someone please help!” pleaded the thin voice.

Cara turned. The voice was coming from unit 1A. 

That was … what was the woman’s name … she was old, probably late seventies, maybe early eighties … a small woman … Mrs. ... Mrs. Cross … no, something like that though … Mrs.Charing. That was it, Mrs. Charing.

Cara walked towards the apartment door and listened.

“Please, can someone help me!”

Cara rapped on the door.

“Hello! Mrs. Charing!”

“Oh! Yes! Please help me!”

Cara tried the door. Locked.

“Mrs. Charing, the door’s locked! I can’t open it!”

Silence.

“There’s a key. It’s on top of the door jamb.” 

Cara stood on her tippy-toes and ran her hand along the top of the jamb, and sure enough, her hand found the key. She unlocked the apartment door and pushed it open.

Cold air rushed out from the apartment, a frigid current of air pushing into the hall.

“Hello? Mrs. Charing? It’s Cara Finnegan from upstairs! Where are you?”

“I’m in the dining room. Please hurry!”

Mrs. Charing’s unit was a mirror image of Cara’s. She walked through the kitchen to the dining room, and stopped dead in her tracks. The dining room window had imploded from the weight of the snow, and had buried Mrs. Charing.

“Hang on!”

Cara rushed forward, and started digging the elderly woman out from under the snow and broken glass, careful not to cut herself. Within minutes Mrs. Charing was free.  

“I’m calling nine-one-one!”

She punched in the numbers. The phone rang and rang. Leaving the phone on speaker, she ran into Mrs. Charing’s bedroom, swiped a blanket, and ran back to the woman, wrapping her in it for warmth.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

Cara explained what had happened to her neighbour.

“I’m sorry, but we are unable to attend due to the weather situation. But, here’s what you can do …”

Marcy, the nine-one-one operator, said for Cara to take Mrs. Charing up to her apartment, and get her warm. Give her a warm bath — not hot, warm — dress her in warm clothes, and keep her wrapped in blankets, and hot packs. If she lost consciousness, Cara was to call back immediately.

An hour later Mrs. Charing was wrapped in a heated blanket, beside the electric fireplace, sipping tea. She had a few minor cuts, but was no longer cold to the touch. Cara dressed the cuts, only having to use steri-strips on one larger cut on her upper arm.

“I would have frozen to death if you hadn’t heard me calling for help. Thank you.” 

Mrs. Charing looked like a little doll nestled in Cara’s favourite chair, blankets heaped around her, tea on the side table.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be here today,” said Cara. She paused and looked out the window. “I was headed off to Bora Bora for the holidays. Originally I wanted to leave yesterday, but I was able to book a better flight for today, so I switched my plans.” She smiled at her neighbour. “Good thing, eh?”

“Well, very good for me. You, not so much.” She smiled. “You’re meeting your family or friends for the holidays?”

“No. Just me.”

“Oh. You’re spending Christmas alone?”

“Yup.”

“Do you mind if I ask why? I’ve never met anyone who voluntarily spent the holidays alone. Most of us are alone due to circumstances beyond our control.”

“It’s just the way I like it. There are no demands, no bickering, no disappointment, no bad memories.”  

Cara looked at the little woman.

“Mrs. Charing, I take it you’re reluctantly spending the holidays alone. How come?”

“It’s Anita, Cara. Mrs. Charing was my mother-in-law.” She smiled. “Well, I’m not reluctantly spending the holidays alone anymore. I’m just not spending it with family.” She smiled at Cara. “Roger and I never had children. Every holiday season we’d visit with family. At first it was with our respective parents. Then our siblings after our parents passed. But they got busy with their own families — their children, then their grandchildren. They all moved away, and we were the only ones left in the city. Eventually, Roger and I decided that we should spend Christmas together, just the two of us. Each year we would travel somewhere new, until Roger passed, about eleven years ago. For the first couple of years after his death I just sat at home, feeling sorry for myself, until I realized that I could volunteer my time so that others could have Christmas with their families. Usually, I volunteer at the animal shelter in the morning, feeding the animals and cleaning cages, then in the afternoon I go to St. Timothy’s and help prepare and serve Christmas dinner. But I’m not so sure about this year, what with the snow, and all.”

Cara was surprised. This tiny woman spent her Christmas volunteering, helping others. She suddenly felt very selfish. Bora Bora didn’t look that appealing right now.

Anita tilted her head to the side. “What about you, Cara. Why are you all alone at Christmas?”

Cara swallowed. Tell this wise old woman the truth, or the fantasy story that she told people when they asked. She opted for the truth.

“Six years ago, my dad died, suddenly, in a car crash. He was alone in the car, on the way to pick me up from the airport. I remember how angry I was when he wasn't there to meet me How dare he leave me stranded at the airport. I left him a pretty scathing voice mail — which I will always regret with all my soul. Anyway, I was in a cab on the way to my parent’s place, when I got the call from my mom. My dad was in the ICU in life-threatening condition, and I should get to the hospital as quickly as possible. I made it there before he died, but he was in a medically induced coma, hooked up to life support. I remember his face was so swollen and bruised that it didn’t even look like him. I held his hand and told him that I was sorry for everything — for insisting on him picking me up at the airport, for not being self sufficient and getting a cab in the first place, and for leaving that really awful voice message.”

She paused, her eyes filling with tears.

“I was telling him how much I loved him, and how much I was going to miss him, when I’m sure he squeezed my hand. Then he flatlined. He died right there. They couldn’t revive him. It was awful.”

“Oh, Cara, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Anita took Cara’s hand, and held it gently in her own. “I take it that this accident occurred around the holidays.”

Cara wiped a tear away.  

“It did. It was Christmas Eve day.”

“Do you still see your mother?”

“That’s a whole other story.” Cara took a deep breath. “We’re estranged. After my dad died, when we were making the funeral arrangements, we were at the mortuary. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so it was just the two of us. I remember Mom had picked out this ostentatious casket, with silk lining and a lead vault. But I knew my dad wanted to be cremated, no fancy casket, just the cardboard one they use for cremation. He didn’t want the rigamarole and expense surrounding death. Just cremation and notice in the paper. But my mom insisted on a burial plot and a mahogany casket, three days of viewing, open casket, and a full Catholic church service, even though Dad hadn't been to church in decades. She want the whole deal. It was more for her than Dad. When I called her on not following Dad’s wishes, she turned to me and said, ‘If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be doing this. You’re the reason he’s dead. You might as well of killed him yourself.’ I was stunned. I had just lost the most important man in my life, and I was already felling guilty as hell, and here my own mother was piling on, laying all the blame on me. And she didn’t let up, it was one remark after another.” Cara shook her head. “‘You’re the reason I’m alone at Christmas.’ ‘If you hadn’t been so spoiled, and insisted that someone meet you at the airport, you’re father would still be alive.’ And my favourite. ‘You’re the reason I’m a widow.’ Forget the fact that he was t-boned by some guy driving a truck who ran a red light. Forget that. In her eyes it was all my fault. And I believed her.”

Cara took another deep breath. 

“All that to say that we do not see each other. At first I tried visiting on school breaks, and at the holidays, but she was relentless. And she started drinking a lot more than usual. I tried to talk to her about her drinking, and she lost her mind, screaming at me that I didn’t know what it was like to be alone in the world, that I was the reason she was drinking, that I had destroyed our family. You have to remember, Anita, I was barely nineteen. I’d lost my dad, and my mom hated me. Christmas held no joy for me.”

“What about extended family?”

“Well, needless to say, Mom’s side of the family treated me like a pariah. And my dad didn’t have any family here — most of his family was still in Ireland.” Cara smiled for the first time since starting her story. “The next Christmas I travelled to Ireland to meet my relatives. I’d only met them a couple of times when they'd travelled here for a visit. They were amazing! And welcoming. And they didn’t blame me for my father’s death. Every year since, I’ve gone away during Christmas. Mostly to avoid my mother’s drunken diatribes. The only time she ever calls is on December twenty-fourth, to tell me what a horrible person I am. I don’t answer her calls, but she still texts me, accusing me of killing my dad and ruining her life. She writes about how happy they’d been before I killed her husband — not my dad, her husband. She forgets that she had a drinking problem before my dad died, and she forgets that he caught her fooling around behind his back. I never told Mom, but Dad was about ready to divorce her. He just wanted to see me finish university, and get out into the world before he left.” Cara paused and shook her head. “Maybe it was my fault? You know, because he was waiting for me to finish school he was still at home, and because he was still at home, he took that specific route to the airport where the accident occurred. Maybe if he had left and moved out, he would have taken a different route, and there never would have been an accident.”

Anita jolted up straight, pointed her finger at Cara. 

“Poppycock!” she said. “Coulda, shoulda, woulda never helped anything! You can’t go back and wish things were different.” She clutched the blanket around her shoulders. “You didn’t kill your father, Cara. It was an accident. A very unfortunate accident. Your mother has no reason to blame you. You did nothing. Fate was the culprit, not you.”

Cara smiled.

“Thank you, Anita. My brain knows you’re right, but my heart still breaks when I think about it.”

Cara got up and walked to the window, which was again covered in snow.

“But, I’m not going anywhere this year,” she said wistfully.

“Where were you headed?” asked Anita.

“Bora Bora. I’ve never been there, so I figured, what the heck? It’s as good a destination as any. I make a point visiting a new country every year.”

“When are you going to see your Irish family next?”

Cara’s face lit up. “At the end of each adventure, I always come home via Cork, Ireland. That’s where most of the family lives. I spend five days visiting them in the new year. It’s my favourite part of each vacation.”

“Well,” said Anita. “I don’t see why you still can’t go to Cork, even if you can’t make it to Bora Bora. There’s no reason to miss your favourite part of the trip.” She waved her hands in the general direction of the window. “I’m sure they’ll have us shovelled out by then.”

Cara could feel her mood buoy. “You’re right, Anita. I can still visit the Finnegans, even if I don’t make it to the French Polynesia. Besides, there’s always next year!”

Anita smiled at Cara. “That’s my girl!”

Both women laughed.

“In the meantime, I think we should try and do something about the mess that is your apartment.”

Anita waved her hand.  

“Don’t worry about that. The broken window is blocked by snow, making it almost like an igloo in there. There’s not much we can do until it stops snowing, anyways.  Besides, I have enough insurance to cover all the damage, and then some. Roger always made sure that we were over-insured, you know, just in case. I guess this is one of those ‘just in cases’ scenarios. Thank heavens for cautious husbands.”  

She raised her teacup to Cara, who returned the toast.

Cara smiled at Anita’s laissez-faire attitude. She was a resilient woman. She was the resilient woman that Cara herself wanted to be.  

“You know, Anita, if we get shovelled out in time, maybe I can join you this year, you know, with your volunteering. I think that would be the right thing to do.”

“Cara, my dear, that would be wonderful.”

The two new friends smiled at each other, and listened to the blizzard outside.