Thumpety Thump-Thump

Leon, Timmy, and Spike ran down the road, throwing snowballs at each other, laughing and yelling.

Davy Dennis sighed. It was easy to have a snowball fight when you had friends. It was only workable to do it solo if you loaded up an automatic ball launcher with ice and stood before it. It was also tricky to join in with a group of kids he didn’t know. Throwing a snowball at a buddy was funny. Throwing one at a stranger was assault. Besides, Davy had never been very good at approaching others, hence his predicament. Dad had told him to go outside and start building a snowman; someone else was sure to join in. While that tactic might’ve worked when Dad was a kid, times changed. There was a new approach to making friends that he and his father had yet to figure out. Besides, the morning sun had started to melt last night’s snow – could you build a snowman in these conditions? Davy didn’t know. But he didn’t want to let down his dad – didn’t want to look like he wasn’t trying – so he trudged on, carrying the box of old clothes. He set the box down in a patch where the snow seemed thickest.

The surface of the snow had taken on a wet shine as the day heated up. It didn’t so much crunch underfoot as it did squelch. Out on the road, a dirty brown slurry slaked the tarmac. From the houses’ roofs, melting ice drip-drip-dripped.

Davy grimaced at the snow on their front lawn. It wouldn’t be long before it was slush. If he was fast, he could make something that resembled a snowman before it liquified. The task would be easier if Davy had some friends; he recognised the irony. With a groan, Davy got to work. He started on the snowman’s lower body because if he started with the head, it might melt in the interim due to its size.

Despite the snow’s wateriness, it compacted and held together well enough. The snowman’s cylindrical lower half stood, sweaty droplets running down its surface.

Davy nodded at his handiwork. Good enough. He glanced around the street – the other kids were still playing, and nobody offered to join. He shrugged and got going on the snowman’s torso.

The snow was losing its consistency, but it stuck together. The lower half sank slightly under the weight, with the torso on top, but it held.

He sighed. It was going to be shoddy work. Shaking the moisture from his gloves, Davy got to work on the final third of the snowman: the head.

The snow wasn’t holding together as well as it should, but it squished to make a sphere shape. The whole thing compressed a few inches when squidged down on top of the torso. The torso leaned to one side as if drunk. The lower half had melded into the ground below. Bits of the head dribbled down.

Davy raised an eyebrow and smirked. It looked funny, but he was close to finishing. If only Davy had a pal. They could chuckle over how bad it was. He snapped two branches off a bush and stabbed them into the torso. From beneath the layer of slush, Davy scrounged for rocks and used them for eyes, buttons, and a nose. At last, he pulled a scarf from the box and tied it around his neck like a noose.

Davy’s Frosty resembled a snowman – albeit one experiencing rapid decay and decomposition. He appeared to be grimacing in pain.

Davy tapped his lower lip. Something was missing. It took him a few seconds to realise what – the hat! What was a snowman without a hat? Even a snowman who looked like the melting man from the toxic-waste scene in ‘Robocop’ required a hat. God, he wanted someone to share this ridiculousness with. With a friend, this would be hilarious. Alone, it was just plain sad. He wished he had someone else who felt the same way he did. Davy searched through the box.

There, at the bottom, was an old silk hat.

Davy picked it up and flinched.

It had given him a slight static shock.

Shaking it off, he took the hat over to his gooey accomplice. If Frosty hadn’t started to melt, Davy would have had to stand on tiptoes. But, as it was, he placed the hat on his deformed noggin with no trouble.

The snowman screamed.

Davy squealed and jumped backwards, tumbling over the box and landing on his backside in the wet snow.

Frosty writhed, screeching. His hooked, branch hands clawed at his face. ‘OH GOD! THE PAIN! SO MUCH PAIN!’

Davy’s heart thudded like so many snowballs pelted at a window. The wet ice was soaking into his clothes. He struggled to breathe. ‘Y-Y—’ he gasped. ‘You can speak?’

The snowman’s branches clenched as he howled to the sky. ‘OF COURSE I CAN SPEAK! YOU WISHED ME ALIVE, YOU MONSTER!’

Davy scrambled to his feet. ‘No! I didn’t! I-I—’

Sagging and disintegrating, Frosty pointed his gnarled branch at the boy. ‘YOU WISHED FOR SOMEONE TO FEEL THE WAY YOU DO, AND HERE I AM! I FEEL THE WAY YOU WOULD IF YOU WERE MELTING ALIVE!’

Davy started to cry. ‘I-I’m sorry, Frosty, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! I just wished—’

‘WELL, DIDN’T YOU EVER HEAR OF “BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR”? ‘CAUSE YOU MADE ME, AND I AM IN AGONY! YOU’RE LIKE A MODERN-DAY VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, CREATING LIFE WITH NO CARE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO IT!’

His hot tears splashed into the snow. ‘Wha— What can I do, Frosty?’

Frosty vomited up a grey-brown slush that splattered over the snow. ‘KILL ME!’ shrieked the snowman between retches and gasps. ‘END MY TORMENT! EVERY SECOND I EXIST IS TORTURE! YOU WISHED ME INTO BEING, NOW BE A MAN AND END ME!’

Davy panicked. How? How on earth— The hat! The hat, the hat, the hat. It had all started with that old silk he had found. Davy darted forward and yanked the hat off Frosty’s dented dome. ‘There!’

But the snowman continued to spasm, and his cries didn’t stop. ‘IT DIDN’T WORK! AH, GOD, IT DIDN’T WORK! YOU CAN’T JUST UNDO WHAT YOU’VE DONE THAT EASILY! YOU MADE LIFE, YOU FOOL!’

Davy dropped the hat and ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the strands. ‘How? What do I do? I don’t— A hairdryer! What about a hairdryer?’

Frosty’s screams rose in pitch. ‘A HAIRDRYER? A HAIRDRYER? I’M EXPERIENCING THE ABSOLUTE AGONY OF MELTING TO DEATH AND YOUR SOLUTION IS A HAIRDRYER? YOU’RE LIKE RIPLEY IN ‘ALIEN: RESURRECTION’ WHEN SHE BURNS HER FAILED CLONE ALIVE! SHE SHOULD HAVE SHOT THE POOR CREATURE INSTEAD! AT LEAST MAKE MY PASSING AS QUICK AND EASY AND PAINFREE AS YOU CAN, YOU SADIST! DON’T YOU HAVE A GUN OR ANYTHING?’

Davy wailed. ‘No! I don’t, I don’t have any—’ He gasped. ‘A bat! I’ve got a cricket bat!’

The snowman whimpered. ‘A BAT? A BAT? OH JESUS! I SUPPOSE IT’S BETTER THAN THE HAIRDRYER! JUST HURRY UP AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!’

Davy was already running inside.

From behind came the yell. ‘AND BE QUICK! THIS IS EXCRUCIATING!’

Two minutes later, Davy emerged – sobbing – with a cricket bat he’d never used. ‘I’m so sorry, Frosty.’

The snowman, who was now little more than a gooey puddle with arms and a head, twitched. ‘DO IT! DO IT! KILL ME! KILLMEKILLMEKILLME!’

Davy closed his eyes and raised the bat.

Thumpety thump-thump, thumpety thump-thump.