They Say it Snows Outside

They say it snows outside.

They say outside is another world, a world I’ll never get to see, let alone understand. A world I should fear.  

You say outside is deep, limitless, and bold. And I trust you when you say so. 

They tried to illustrate the danger of the outside again, as if they had sensed my awakening or read our conversations. They drew symbols and diagrams on a board with a cringing chalk to convince me to never leave. But they failed.

I watched the movies you recommended. Whoever that actor was, I like him. I like his woolen sweater, his oversized jacket, and the truck he rides with his hair blowing in the wind. Is that what it's like outside? Or is that fantasy? Like Lord of the Rings? 

We should go on a truck adventure someday. You and me. Along one of those roads that seem far away as I sit here typing. Like everything. Even you seem far away. Who knows? Maybe you’re just a fictional character?

I received dried beef by post last week – I know it's you – thank you very much. I still don’t know how my online friends find my address each time but unwrapping your presents in the morning is always a pleasure.

We should try dried beef and tea together. We have a huge storage of leaves here and the Nile blend is my favorite. I’d like to share it with you. 

They say it snows outside and I can’t touch it. If I could, I’d shape a snowball and throw it to your face. Watch it fly and reach you before it melts, wherever you are and wherever I am. 

For now, I'll sit here and wait to read from you.

Write soon little friend,

Gary.

**

Gary jumped off his desk and dragged his bunny slippers to the kitchen.

Through the windows that stretched across the grey walls, a dim light came in. You could tell it was a typical snow day, like his friend had described. From where he was though, Gary couldn’t say. The only thing he knew was the sun was acting shy that morning.

He passed by the weather-generating studio and kept walking. Since his encounter with said friend, Gary cared only about natural weather. His friend sent him pictures of his surroundings and Gary pinned them up in the library. He had noticed natural weather changed on a whim and those whims, he thought, could nurture him far more than dried beef and Nile blends. If only he could embrace them.

Gary fetched a toast and savored its light burning smell. Stacey had set the table for breakfast and disappeared, as usual. Gary spread aloe vera jam on his toast with his finger, which he licked, and agitated his feet under the table. Stacey knew how to mull jam, he had to admit.

Stacey was a sensitive soul with a ponytail. She walked around with thick gloves and a watering can, dedicating all she had to her plants. She pampered them and conversed with them more than with him, but Gary didn’t mind. He had little use for talks that didn’t answer the questions that obsessed him. Amongst them: why had they been stuck in that sage-smelling space of flattened coal and steel for as far as he could remember? And who were they? Stacey never spoke about this. She had little use for thinking.

Gary threw his head backwards and pushed strings of dried beef into his mouth. He thought of his friend who had sent him enough songs, movies, and pictures for Gary to say he knew him by heart. Did said friend know anything about Gary? Well... 

Gary was a storyteller. Or a trickster, as Stacey would put it certainly because deep down, she enjoyed his tricks. Too bad his online friends never spotted them. One of his favorites was to pretend he received presents when it was all bunker supplies. He also claimed scientists held him prisoner to run experiments on his brain. "They say", "they deny", "they refute", there was no "they". Only he, Stacey and that nauseating smell of sage. 

**

Gary climbed up to the library to orchestrate his day. Days came and went all alike, but he made it a point to inject rhythm in them.

Lying on the sofa, arms crossed behind his neck, he cycled his legs up in the air as if to reach the moon he had painted on the ceiling years ago. Stacey had grown a plant with horizontal leaves as thick as wood and had dared him to lay on them. He thought he’d take the challenge further and painted galaxies on his back, like an Italian master. The result wasn’t too bad.

He ran his finger across the tentacles of his shiny Milky Way painting, from afar, imagining a ride with his friend, their hair blowing in the wind. That would be something. 

Another something would be to exhibit his paintings in a naïve art gallery, to the wild applause of curators, visitors, and the press. In the real world, out there.

Gary headed to the desk where his inventions awaited. In his minutiae solar system, planets revolved in real time and the Earth had circled around the Sun four times already. Based on his math, he was nine when he finished the model so by now, he must have been thirteen. Yes. And Stacey was probably in her twenties although inside she was most likely one hundred fifty.

Gary fetched his latest toy – a pink glue gun with a spiral screw, inspired from the Milky Way, naturally. He had been working on it for a year now and was almost satisfied. 

He put on his new favorite song and tinkered with his screwdriver, making final adjustments on the glue gun. He then pointed it at the origamis he had shaped months ago and, lip-singing to Lou Reed, pulled the trigger. The origamis shrunk one by one. 

"So, it was you," a voice interrupted his testing session.

The music was so loud he hadn't noticed Stacey, in her green hat and gloves. She was holding a cactus, her eyes darting at the gun.

"You shrank the greenhouse plants,” she said and looked at his computer, “stop that silly song.”

“It’s not silly, it’s Lou Reed.” Gary said nonchalantly as he pressed stop. What could he now do but dodge her question? “Ever heard of White Nights? That's where the song comes from. It’s a movie about – “

Stacey raised her hand and Gary stopped talking. She peered at the wall where he pinned pictures. Her eyes wandered across the rusty trucks, heat maps, sunsets, and permafrost. 

“Is that your new whim?” she asked.

"It's not a whim, it's investigation." He pointed at the snow pictures. "One day, I'll see this.”

Stacey laughed out loud. 

“Remind me what happened to your ‘escape map’?”

“My escape maps have nothing to do with this.”

"Right, right,” Stacey said playing with her cactus. “The question is why you keep postponing your escape." 

“Never postponed a thing." Gary arranged his hair. "Never said I wanted to escape."

Stacey threw her gloves on the desk and paused. “If you want to leave, it’s fine. We can come up with a plan. Just stop changing your mind every day.”

“I do whatever I want,” Gary said pointing his gun at his reflection in the mirror by the computer.

“Press. I dare you.”

Silence.

"You never wanted to go outside?" 

"We've already had this conversation, Gary. I have all I need here: my greenhouse, a shelter, food. I can play with my plants and watch them grow. Look at Becky, my cactus, isn't she lovely?"

Was that it? Food and ugly cacti?

“You don't want to tell me why you are afraid?" 

"And you? You care only about plants and you always avoid the topic."

His voice twisted as he pronounced the word "topic". He could have called it any other way, it wouldn't have changed a thing. It all bit the same and explained why he lied online. He was so insignificant that no-one cared to provide answers. Not even she, regardless of how caring she seemed.

Stacey feigned not to notice. "Show me your escape map."

Gary hesitated but as her brows tilted, he opened the desk drawer. The map represented the bunker with its two floors, ten rooms and all its corridors. Its pipes and all the imaginary tunnels Gary had built up in his mind in thirteen years. Despite all of this, he had never been able to figure anything out. Who supplied the fridge, for instance? Their wardrobes? How come his clothes fit him as he grew up?

Stacey flipped the map. At its back, another one. A "map of the world", based on what Gary had found online and what his "little friends" had taught him.

"How many maps do you need?" she asked mockingly.

The number didn't matter. What mattered was the link to piece them all together. The link between the inside and the outside. Where did he, Stacey, and their bunker stand in comparison to the outside? That question kept him awake at night and no single map could provide an answer.

“Interesting,” Stacey finally said.

She fetched a pencil and, holding it with four fingers, drew curvy lines in the pipes coming out of the greenhouse sinks. She stretched them further, outside the bunker.

“Do you know what that is?” 

Gary shook his head.

“Roots.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “These guys,” she hinted at her cactus, “need water. So, they find it. If you follow the roots of the greenhouse plants, you'll find a source of water.”

Gary frowned.

“Water means civilization. If you follow the stream, it will take you to the closest inhabited place.”

Stacey fetched the shrinking gun from his hands. Before Gary could move, she pulled the trigger. Something struck him in the chest and, suddenly, the Milky Way on the ceiling looked gigantic. Stacey’s now giant hand grabbed him by the hoodie of his pajama. Gary floundered but she pressed him still.

"I'm making you a favor, Gary,” she said. “The world awaits, you're well equipped, you know so much."

What did she mean 'he was equipped'? He couldn't remember a thing from his wall. He knew nothing about his friends, he had no real names, no addresses. Everything was fictional. Gary begged her with his eyes for she couldn't hear his mousy voice. 

“It will go fast,” she said, striding down the stairs and through the kitchen to the greenhouse.

Tears surged in his eyes and he punched her palm but her skin was hard and thick. 

Why couldn't that day be like the others? 

He could make up a new toy, lure someone into pity friendship. Play with their feelings. Swallow their kindness. Watch movies and dance to Lou Reed.

He heard the water scream and felt its mist on his cheeks as Stacey opened her fist. A wind came out of the tap water and shook his hair just like in his friend’s movie.

Stacey handed him one of the mandragoras he had shrunk with his gun.

"You can use it to talk to me anytime," she said.

Gary broke into tears.

"Don't cry. Remember what you've been saying for the past month? 'They say it snows outside'. Don't you want to see it? Gary, go. It's your chance."

As she pronounced those words, something warm filled up his chest. Gary pressed his eyes tight and squeezed the tiny mandragora in his hand.

Water poured as he slid through the sink holes and down the pipes. His stomach surged and he felt a void down there in his tummy. He giggled and raised his arms.

As he slid down the giant cascade, Gary realized he hadn’t removed his bunny slippers. 

****