Genevieve; Seven Evenings of Light Snow by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

GENEVIEVE; SEVEN

EVENINGS OF LIGHT

SNOW

By

Edward Drobinski

Copyright © 2019 by Edward Drobinski All rights reserved

“You have to write the book that

wants to be written. And if the

book will be too difficult for

grown-ups, then you write it for

children."

-Madeleine L’ Engle-

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The day was grippingly dreary with the sun sporadic and tepid. It was as if the allegedly fiery orb was playing a game which combined hide-and-seek with solitaire after having acquiesced to the wishes of the unicolor clouds which had once again bunched together, now indistinguishable from one another in their seamless tight knit congregation. The only question the sun may have had went unspoken; that being a logical reaction to having time and again previously asked whether their ersatz color was intended to be uniformly dirty gray-ish white or uniformly dirty white-ish gray. It was just an attempt to make playful conversation; the reply of only significance to him in that of being an acknowledged reply, specifics substantially irrelevant. The golden one considered a response to the entreaty to be a quite reasonable expectation; at first genuinely surprised at its apparent lack of a shared concept of reciprocity; now resigned to it.

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Carousel and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” by George and Ira Gershwin; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.

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Today, the signifier was once more sufficiently disinterested, self-justified in that slight, based on tedious prior experience with a signified, obviously deaf, dumb, mute, or otherwise totally uninterested and thereby, if not for other specific characteristics not yet known, totally uninteresting.

Despite expected claims otherwise, the situation was actually quite pleasant, relaxing, and contenting; languidity a better description, but a word much too confusing to proffer to the multitudes. Sunny let out a short burp, a quick “burrap,” which the Hominids either mistook for a sign of impending rain or poor table manners.

Disinterested and disinteresting sky; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

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In imaginable continuation of the color challenged, non-responder, Genevieve was quietly amused to think that it was cool enough to think of a jacket, but warm enough not to need one, especially if you were already graced with a cozy natural coat of one’s own.

Genevieve; property of the author.

Genevieve was in town with Dillon. It was not their home town of Poochville or any other pooch town, for that matter. She didn’t know which outmoded and worn out hominid town it was, as they all looked the same from her vantage point of four petite doggy legs.

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Dillon; property of the author.

There were large buildings made of all sorts of strange materials mixed with glass, a lot of concrete on the ground, garbage in the gutters, and busy hominids rushing about, almost hidden in the shadows.

Hominid town; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

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Genevieve didn’t know why she and Dillon were there, and since winter had weeks prior set into Poochville and Pacific Lane, she suspected that she was not anywhere near their home Genevieve and Dillon; property of the author.

or even anywhere near their zip code, as it seemed to be a dreary spring or absolutely dismal early summer day, raising the thought of “on-the-verge-of-downtown” Caracas, Venezuela, or yet more gravely, a non-central section of Providencia, Brazil.

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Providencia; property of the author.

She wanted to go home, primarily out of a disinterest in the shade provoked, dull, inflexible topography. Any sign of a green nature which might have once been there, had been obliterated. Though she had no fear for their personal safety beyond an aesthetically based semi-revulsion, no different than one gets when viewing a squashed rodent carcass, amicably and invitingly, she tugged at Dillon and told him that she’d like to go back home

Citing no particular reason, Dillon amicably said that he wanted to stay for a while more. Genevieve said that she would take the car and drive home, to which Dillon had no objection.

At this point Genevieve realized that she was awake in a dream, as she, like any pooch, never had a car and was subject to legal penalties for driving one, as she also had no license to drive a hominid car on hominid roads. Besides, Genevieve didn’t know how

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to differentiate a wheel from a gas pedal as paws were not designed for either.

Genevieve and Dillon; property of the author.

This realization produced any of a number of adjustments to her “normal” line of thought; the list being much too cumbersome to state as the possibilities were inclusive of anything that she or anyone might imagine; none of which offered the possibility of a penalty more severe than waking up.

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Genevieve driving; property of the author.

She must have driven the car home, though she was unaware of having done so. It must have been, as the next thing she knew she was back at the two hundred year old colonial on Baptist Church Road.

Farm house; property of the author.

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This once more fortified her belief of being awake within a dream as she and Dillon never had lived in a two hundred year old colonial, or on any Baptist Church Road. Rather, in

“reality” they had always made a relatively new and modest dog house on Pacific Lane their domicile.

Genevieve paced the house and somehow through canine osmosis, came to know that it was situated in a rural area, on six acres, four of them wooded with mostly sycamores which exhibited their maple-like leaves and mottled, peeling, deceivingly ailing barks; a possible visual subterfuge someone might had designed in order to be an un-required attention receiving magnet.

Genevieve was uninterested in the trappings of the pre-1830

house, decorated primarily through varying degrees of artisanal competence,

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Early American furnishings”; modified public domain.

somewhat confused by a “reproduction”-repair-“restoration”

process which included a modern day, practical interpretation of current tastes and a simplistic, economical deference to cost, and decided to seek increased “authenticity” through an exploration of her dream woods. Her solitary excursion into the shedding sycamore sticks, which had appeared to been dense from a distance, revealed that they were actually only an edgy veneer on something unrevealed. Banning actual exploration, the surface layer must have been intended as a long distance visual cover for a decimated center. That walking space provided, if not regularly scrutinized through due diligence or true interest by commercial enterprises or other hominid desecrations of nature, which in the former case outranks hominids due to their legally and “progressively” transcribed position, that “progression”

verified by none other than the US Supreme Court and their learned interpreters,

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Supreme Court; property of the author.

which unelected reigns supreme over any archaic notions of equity, fairness, or individual rights not their own; that statement applicable to both the enterprise and their cohort court, which even in the least egregious of cases, vis-à-vis individual faux hominid rights, ignoring that of pooches, had found among other extremely loose interpretations, that if Wattaburger wants to replace your home with another of its franchises, that is perfectly legal on the grounds that its

“improvement” is calculably a “superior” improvement, in terms of appraised dollars, which holds true for all houses excepting those owned by LeBron James, who is rumored to be actually attempting to open a few localized franchises.

Neighborhood “improvement”; property of the author.

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Genevieve entered what was once her own space in another dream to be appalled that, like the Hominid town she had left Dillon, in the area behind the thin edge of trees, the

“landscape” had been commandeered by concrete commercial enterprises.

Genevieve suspected that this was an ancillary work to that allowed by her Masonic neighbor, who had sold off his fifty acre woodlot, having benefitted from the changed zoning laws provided by his financially beholden political contacts on the Township Committee and their underlying technical, testifying appointees.

Still, if not much too graciously understandable on a legal-logic basis, it was also still totally unacceptable on a personal one, which seemingly illegally and to the homeowner’s detriment, ignored long-held boundaries.

This de facto confiscation of heritage and private property without notice, not only hit Genevieve and Dillon’s border, but also went well over the line into the realm of Supreme-Court-rejected-case-essential-approval, like a case of assault perpetrated by the current Hominid sacred cow, unreported in well-studied futility. Dillon’s and her violations, assuming that they or one of them owned this dream house and land were well in place, unless that dream law which purportedly supported their rights, had also been changed without prior notice.

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She walked through the bounds-ignoring and invasive concrete path, eyeing the hideous, intrusive structures just a few feet off of it where once sycamore saplings abounded. Since she knew that it was a dream and that it wasn’t any different from where she had left unruffled and complacent dream Dillon in the dried, tactile composite, Genevieve calmly observed what was before her.

Merchants fronting shops; property of the author.

Most merchants fronted their empty spaces, planted on stools which obliged a defecatory, hunch-backed position, offering a greeting of sorts to those they longed to be carriers of credit cards or the coin of their solidified realm. Genevieve had neither, and graciously waved a paw at the smiling entreaties of the many who desperately sought contact and a sale. To her, the pattern became quickly obvious that of one which compels those not doing well to be faux gregarious, while those doing well remained aloof, often completely out of sight.

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She overheard something. Said the straight man to the late man; “Where have you’ve been?”

“I’ve been here, and I’ve been there, and I’ve been in between.”

Long view of the confiscated and now hideous Baptist Church Road property; property of the author.

She wandered through the money grubbing complex, of necessity deftly dodging malodorous, unattended refuse, her eyes unable to see over the clustered, tall, attended structures. The items on display were of no interest to her as they didn’t even approximately resemble anything she knew or wanted; being a replica of that which swam freely in the flowing gutters of Hominidville on a rainy day, on their ways to the great sewer underground. Out of an infernal curiosity she attempted to navigate the stores in an efficient manner; thereby hoping to

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see all that was there as quickly as possible. Her straight line approach coupled with a backing out into the next module resulted in her inadvertent circling; recognized only after having entered the same store for the third time. The lone way which seemed to offer some hope of leaving this uninteresting maze was to go out a back door. But after a series of frantic advances and retreats, she found none to have any.

All of a sudden Genevieve was immersed in a bright idea.

She realized that she had spent enough time away from Dillon to be worried about her having left him alone in the concrete of another mercenary Hominidville.

Genevieve immersed in a bright ides; property of the author.

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She again thought it best to exit this abomination, and drive the car back to where he was and take him out of his. As she tried to get out of this commercially based encroachment on their private property, she found that the magnitude and myriad of defined passages were daunting, though their difficulties were nothing when compared to the ample supply of dead ends seemingly rampant.

Dead end; property of the author.

After initially bordering on a frenzied, fearful state of mind, she again remembered that she was awake in her own dream.

She could change the circumstances as soon as she could visualize other ones. Now well-armed, she calmly pondered her options. They were unlimited. She instantly narrowed them down to a few. She could get out of this trapping commercial enterprise. That was a given. She could get back to the farmhouse. She could re-appear next to Dillon in that hominid

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town. She could drive there and bring Dillon back to the farmhouse or their own house in Poochville. Genevieve decided that she’d opt for the latter, the A or B matter not necessary to decide right now, as she had discovered that she liked driving the car.

She drove into town and as unlikely as it would seem, but because she expected to, she immediately found Dillon. She slowed down by him, and called out; “Get in. We’re going home.”

She was greeted by an option she had not considered, as Dillon said; “Not yet. I still want to look around here for a while.”

She quickly re-thought her idea about unlimited options.

She parked the car and joined Dillon in his walk. After a minute she said; “Sometimes you’re just so stubborn, I could almost correct you to complete compliance.”

Dillon turned toward her, and still walking, said; “What?”

After a moment of silence, he started to snicker and then she did too. They eventually went back to Poochville, though it remained unclear as to who was driving, if anyone, or if an auto was involved in their transport, as there were no cars in the entirety of Poochville, let alone near their house.

For the seventh consecutive early winter evening it had snowed lightly on Pacific Lane. It was fully expected that the

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day would again brighten up and melt the quarter inch accumulation away, as that was the case the last six times.

Pacific Lane just prior to sunrise; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

Though it couldn’t even qualify as a bona fide inconvenience, Genevieve wished that the sky would make up its mind about whether it wanted to provide a traditional Christmas view or not. Either way was fine with her. She was adaptable. It was this repetitive flip-flop indecision she found annoying on this December 15.

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Genevieve and Dillon’s house; property of the author.

On the early seventh white morning of the seventh white night she left her house as well as still covers-fancying, half-sleeping Dillon and took her ball out into the persistent falling sprinkles fully intending to experience the winter weather most tried their best to avoid. The ground snow accumulation was already receding making traction more difficult than if it had not. Genevieve made good use of the slippery surface. After a short running start, she playfully slid down the lane and sat there with her ball, waiting for another snow-impervious playmate.

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Genevieve with her ball in the snow; property of the author.

Genevieve was serious. She seriously wanted to play in the snow. She was playfully serious and/or seriously playful, that one of her “confusing crystal” visions she had learned to best keep to herself. Any comments which had followed her long gone, prior attempts to articulate such a “difficult” posture had proven to be much too tedious. All in all it was most always a wasted annoying effort, and even worse, sometimes resulted in bad feelings when articulated to an inarticulate, “common sense challenged” mongrel of the Hominid-influenced persuasion. Some pooches were still ill-advisedly or genetically attached to responses instilled through the “fetch, heel, no,” and the rest of the training-syndrome.

Dillon was one of those who understood Genevieve’s words before they were spoken, but this morning he wanted to sleep

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away this cold, snowy opening, saving his energy for the inevitably better late morning. Genevieve didn’t want to impinge upon his wishes, though she probably wouldn’t have, and/or he wouldn’t say so, complicating the non-issue from another aspect best avoided.

La Scala of Milan; property of the author.

Dillon had effectively been trying to doze through Puccini’s “La Boheme” overture, waiting for the arrival of the full time librettists, Illica and Giacosa, or even embarrassed and defectively plagiarized Murger, and was not overly entranced by the machine gunned, blurb limited, mass accompaniment. What can an aesthete do? Perhaps a tad overly deferential, Dillon must have heard and put some credence in the opera’s music having been found to be deficient by the lock-step critics.

Trying his best to disregard that, his neglecting efforts were rewarded in the very first act.

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Maria Collie and “When Me’n Vo” by Chiaramello and Puccini; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.

Despite the opera's popularity with audiences, the Italian composer had been the target of condescension by most music critics who found his composition insufficiently sophisticated

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or difficult. Subsequent to a first viewing, one lacking any note had said; “I never want to hear ‘La Bohème’ again. In spite of its neatness, I became sickened by the cheapness and emptiness of the music." Wishing that non-entity a full and speedy recovery, Dillon hoped that his dimmed presence at the show’s opening was more of a bow to the comfort of his warm bed or a desire to be fashionably late, rather than a nod to the

“professional” Hominid consensus assessment.

Original 1896 poster for “La Boheme”; public domain.

Genevieve thought; “See how easily complications can be manufactured? It is best not mentioned as those who are capable of knowing already know, and those who are incapable never will.

Choir preaching is an un-necessary, boring, thankless and perhaps worst of all, a very un-fun, low-paying avocation.”

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Serious looking Genevieve; property of the author.

Suddenly, an old song raced through her mind. Genevieve was surprised that she hadn’t previously realized that she had unconsciously memorized all the words. Probably not a lot more than can be counted on one’s paws, some things actually stand the test of time, effectively becoming a corrupted form of immortal. Thus far, the living have not yet seen anything better, or their secret has been effectively guarded. The momentarily discovered ability to recall the lyrics brought Genevieve a knowing, inward smile.

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Hominid nerd of indeterminate gender holding papers and “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Bob Dylan; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.

Reclining at the Pacific Lane road edge, ball partially tucked under her belly, gripped loosely by her front paws, Genevieve didn’t have to wait long to find two pooch playmates.

Though Dillon slept through the event, as far as she knew; Lucky and Bella were up and saw her from their front window, and wondered if Genevieve was okay.

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Lucky and Bella; property of the author.

Bella was acting her emblematic “the-worst-has-come-Bella,”

type. But once more her dour posture produced an upbeat note in the almost required positive response to it. This time, her result was to initiate the play process, just like the few bellicose but respectable, Hominid conspiracy theorists not regurgitating the commonly known in a “search” more focussed on potential personal remuneration than useful revelation of truth.

All the other Pacific Lane pooches had always thought that the long term attraction between she and Lucky was that she always thought everything would go wrong and he always thought everything would go right. It kind of balanced in that difficult to attain, unbalanced way. His batting average led the league in Poochville, but she’d have been something better than a Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds mix had she merely transferred her skills to the allegedly “major” Hominidville

“Big Leagues.” This was precluded by a number of poochie type considerations, the largest of which was her aversion to playing with a mitt not designed to accommodate her paws.

Seeing Genevieve sitting in the snow Bella was sure that something dire had happened to her, and for her part suspiciously, and with demonstrated concern informed Lucky of that. Lucky joined her at the window, and upon seeing Genevieve

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sitting and clutching her ball, defaulted to his Pollyanna-ish optimism, and said; “Maybe. But my first guess is that Genevieve is just waiting for another participant in the Winter Olympics.”

“You’re always so glib.”

“Well, whatever. Let’s move it, go out and find out what’s going on.”

To a certain degree they “moved” it, and after a few whoopsy-daisy slides in the snow were in the vicinity of sitting Genevieve and her ball.

“Wanna play?” said Genevieve.

“Are you all right?” said Bella.

“If I wasn’t would I want to play? If I wasn’t I’d have used my smart phone to have an ambulance here. Thank you, Bella, and no offense intended, but uh, the electronics and perpetual surveillance have kind of diminished the place of good or bad Samaritans .......... It’s a shame in a way. Whatever. I appreciate your concern. WANNA PLAY?” said Genevieve again, in a bark which was in, out, switching, and at times even tangential to Bella’s prior, as in Bella’s “moment ago,” assessment of Genevieve’s “plight.”

Bella turned toward Lucky and said; “I told you that something was wrong. She’s obviously delirious.”

Genevieve used her nose to bat the ball ten feet down the white road cover and ran after it.

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With the ball once more loosely cradled in her front paws, she looked back to see that Lucky and Bella were watching her with eyes full of wonder and legs full of transitory sluggishness. The eye-leg duality multiplied by another two or three fundamentals, required a Genevieve excursion into misnamed sloth squared or further carried to a mathematically correct higher power, for any further doomed attempt at collective understanding, and Genevieve just wasn’t in the mood for any sort of laborious, totally un-fun, and cognitively uninspired dissertations concerning; “The Underpinnings of the Mathematical Kinetic Chemical Reaction as Affected by Quantum Artificial Intelligence Backtracking Algorithms.”

Math; property of the author.

Lucky, more or less intuitively guessed Genevieve’s mindset semi-correctly. It was easy for him, as it was just enticingly

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adjacent to that of his own; much like that of an everyday honey bee; not fully understanding but un-wittingly reciprocal in his approach to a flower. He slid over, that small effort mostly comprised of a tranquil meta maneuver after momentary physical inertia laws were nano-second satisfied. If any, the trick was in the maneuvering technique. It must have been that though the required effort was minimal, that same effort was usually and commonly, embarrassingly praised as an “accomplishment” ten times beyond its degree of difficulty; or ten factorial times depending, with each factor raising the level of “praise” issued by those oriented toward the psychological, popular, and semi-misrepresentation of that currently pervasive pseudo-science.

That semi-misrepresentation was inarguably thus so inarguably semi-limited as demonstrated through an historically continual and presently continued mode of expert disagreement and easily predictable revision to the arcane, uninteresting specifics of that; at any time state-of-the-art versions updated and available bi-weekly, for $12.99 in e-format and $16.99 in print.

To Genevieve and Dillon, the largest and most difficult question was how this might differ from conspiracy theory distribution.

Any conceivable hint of a withering sarcasm necessitated a supportive need for a well-over-the-top re-assurance which always accomplished the opposite, often intentionally. Lucky stopped the impending downward spiral through his reversion to

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his natural, poochie, doo-doo, flop. He made another vow to stop reading dumb Hominid magazines and ersatz lit, as he batted the ball away from Genevieve’s compliant front paws. He chased it down with a flat out, ending slide mixed with a better one eighty than had won the last NBA Slam Dunk Championship. He laid there with the ball covering half his face, looking one-brow-up-inquisitively back at motionless Genevieve and Bella. “Didn’t mean to be rude, I assure you.”

“Most impressive,” said Bella almost impassively, resulting in a wish; who’s not quite clear.

In a high woof, Genevieve said; “LeBron’s days are surely numbered in single digits,” as she rushed toward the ball.

In a follow-the-leader kind of obligatory feigned acquiescence mixed with a desire to not be the one left out of the party, her face alternating between hanging “sophisticated”

boredom and the jaunty slobber of puppyhood, Bella slid along behind her doing her best to exude exuberance with a butt full of snow. In fear of being outnumbered, Lucky used the neck leveraged side of his snout to bat the ball back over both their oncoming heads.

Genevieve and Bella’s need to reverse field with traction against them was in Lucky’s favor. He bounded past them toward the ball, but had to pull up short of it in fear; fear that he would run over little Tardiff and Lenta. The sheltie couple had

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come out to offer what they could of assistance to the trio

“struggling” in the snow.

Tardiff and Lenta; property of the author.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeek,” they simultaneously screamed after seeing the galloping, wide body of Lucky bearing down on them, while attempting to immerse their entire bodies under a blanket of protective snow which was much too shallow to cover anything more than two noses and two partial sides. Tardiff and Lenta had been friends of Lucky for all their lives and had no fear of him personally. But, at one third of his size, not to mention his running start, they had to beware of being trampled, just as a hominid would if accidentally taking a holiday on the Kentucky Derby track when the starting gate opened.

Lucky dug in his rear, worn, but still sometimes effective dewclaws in an attempt to avoid the impending collision. It wasn’t a sure thing, as the thin snow layer barely covered what was hidden below, that possibly a dewclaw antidote, but in the

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nano-second dictated decision making situation, seemed the best option available at the time, and it proved to be sufficient. He came to a full stop a relatively comfortable two feet from the cowering, tiny shelties who now had the ball between them, and if aware of that, would likely have been dismayed to have been so “blessed.”

After the apparent reassurance provided by a few moments of silence, Tardiff and Lenta both extracted their noses from their minimal snow protection, for a second looking about with an air of blinking incredulance.

Lenta and Tardiff, somewhat relieved property of the author.

Seeing the stationary ball between them, stationary Lucky at a distance, and after a few moments of head-shaking-snow-clearance, Tardiff reverted to his and Lenta’s original intent,

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and with his teeny semi-snow head half directed toward Lucky said a low-growled obligatory in absence; “Are you all right?”

Genevieve and Bella were now close to the trio, and the lot of them, cautiously at the outset, quickly fortified by a lack of disapproval, commenced laughing; none of them individually exactly certain about what, though certain that this was the result of differing points of view; but nonetheless tickled in the aggregate. At that moment the black sky began a retraction as if it had been the closed ceiling on a domed sports stadium.

Slowly, a low, clouded sky began to emerge, replacing strips of black with bands of gray interspersed with apparent mobile appearances of many miniscule, semi-shining dots, most artificially similar to a flickering, LED dimmed conservation of energy. This resembled the standard lighting on a Christmas tree, de-colorized.

As the sky further spread on its slow, silently spinning wheels of patience,

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Woman with spinning wheel and “Spinning Wheel,” written by David Clayton-Thomas; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.

expanding, more frequent levels of dots traded their semi-shine for what earthly pooches saw as a shine; that not a function of intensity, but rather one of density.

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Winter sunrise and “I Can See Clearly Now,” the writing officially attributed to Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, though rumored to have been stolen from Bob Marley; property of the author, the latter under both the “fair use” and “transformative” doctrines.

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Tardiff said; “We’re all different sizes. So, can we play something less competitive? Instead of chasing the ball, why don’t we make a snowman?”

Lenta added; “While we still can.”

Genevieve shrugged and rolled her ball to the side of the road, where it came to rest in the stems of a tiny butterfly bush. The lavender plant was thus far handling the winter well with no noticeable dieback, and an absolute refusal to shed any of its flowers.

Butterfly bush; property of the author.

Lucky said; “Let’s. I haven’t seen any yet this year.”

Bella said; “This isn’t going to work. I just know it.”

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Lucky said; “What’s not going to work this time?”

Bella said; “Everything. Our paws are too small to pack the snow right. Someone will start running after the ball again and carelessly knock him down. It’s getting warmer and he will melt.

There’s hardly enough snow to ................. “

Lucky interrupted her, saying; “Okay, okay. Will any of that make us or him any worse off than we are right now?”

Bella said; “ ................... Let me think about that a while. Probably.” She was trying to hide a grin herself when everyone else started laughing.

The snowman was made and he was little, but a fine one. He stood no higher than Tardiff and Lenta, were they to get up on their hind legs. Everyone raced back home to get things which would make him appear decorated and properly dressed.

Lucky and Bella brought black buttons for his eyes and green ones for his belly.

Tardiff and Lenta brought a string for his smile and part of a carrot for his nose.

Genevieve tried to be quiet and not to wake him, but made enough sound to rouse Dillon, as she fumbled through the chests of drawers to find his scarf and hat.

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Snowman; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

All dressed up, the snowman now stood there smiling at everyone.

Lenta said; “We’ll have to give him a name.”

Bella responded; “How do you know that the snowman is a he?”

“Because he looks like one?” said Genevieve.

“So does Ellen,” retorted Bella with a snooty air of irony.

“Now that’s an oxymoron for you.”

Lucky said; “I don’t see any ........ you know.”

“Could be tucked,” said Tardiff.

Bella said; “I’m sorry I started this.”

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Genevieve jibbed; “I had my suspicions, but I think these kinds of considerations may have started before you were born.”

“Let’s just name this snow creature sometime before he

...... it ...... the being melts,” said Lucky.

A chorus of barks and yaps followed. “Frank N Stein, Little Monster, Bernie, Carrot Face, Button Nose, Smiley Face, Charlie Bubbles, Bubbles, Liza, Albert, Rita, Tush, Frosty the Second, Hipoccino, Icyskidzy, Lumi, Rumi, Molly, Dolly, Holly, Jolly, Polly, Lolly, Gag, Zoe, Rachel, Icicle, Snow Ruler, Ice Skate, Powder, Crunchie, Too Soon, Too Late, Too Undefined, Temporal, Morty, Hipster, Tantra, Tant Amount, HeatIntolerant, Shorty, Allof Thabove.”

“Meltdown, he’s starting to go,” deadpanned Bella.

Sure enough, just like the surrounding woods, and just as in each of the last six days, the early snow used to build the snowman was starting to dissipate in the increasing light.

Ten moist eyes silently looked at their short lived creation. Trying to break the spell of impending doom, Genevieve said; “Well, let’s at least name our beauty while he’s still amongst the living. I vote for Bella’s ‘Meltdown.’ Names are often the opposite of what they seem to say; like the big, fat dog named ‘Tiny.’ Maybe the nomenclatured prediction of imminent doom will result in an actuality of eternal life. ....... Damn

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uncooperative words should bear the brunt of their own trickery.”

Eyes narrowed, Bella shot Genevieve a brief scornful look, but remained silent, full well knowing that Genevieve as well as everyone else anticipated the bleak gist of what she would have said, though that anticipation was just another mistake repeated and repeated through the blurbs which half-assed indicated a predictably “comfortable” genre. Continuing her gaze at Genevieve, Bella shook her head “No,” as she simultaneously smiled a “Yes.”

The others woofed agreement, that agreement unspecific as to whether it applied to the words of Genevieve or the silence of Bella. The best bet was that it referred to Genevieve, as the only other possible choice necessitated a yet unacknowledged ability to demonstrate a clairvoyance.

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Woods during melt-off; property of the author.

Maybe due to the name provided or how well he was packed, Meltdown didn’t seem to melt near as much as the snow in the woods; though the keenest of observers thought they had detected a slight movement which may have actually been the shoeless shuffle toward the beginning of the end of Meltdown’s left eye socket. The collective mindset tuned to “Bojangles.”

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Meltdown; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

A mother squirrel ten feet up an adjacent tree chirped and chattered; “Would you please be quiet. My baby is sleeping.” To the pooches this sounded like a high pitched “Screee. Waaaayup waaaay roooo ...... raaaajib raaayick. Screee.” A few said;

“Awwww. Good morning, squirrel mama.”

Mother squirrel and pup; property of the author.

Adding to mama squirrel’s annoyance, Dillon came out, went to Genevieve, and proudly displaying his mixed Irish Setter

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ancestry in patches of the remaining snow, boisterously and inquisitively asked; “Where have you put my ball?”

Dillon; property of the author.

To Genevieve, the gentle outburst was more of a welcome than any sort of infraction. She thought that the ball was as much her property as it was his, but didn’t want to bring up endless

”issues,” and she considered it sweet of him to think of the ball as his.

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Genevieve and Dillon; property of the author.

Before Genevieve could take the trouble to show Dillon what his eye sight apparently refused or pretended to refuse to see; which was virtually right in front of his face, the special tomcat, Sunshine appeared and got everyone’s attention. He was bigger, now approaching two years of age, most of that time having been spent with his four siblings and mother at Clement’s house right on Pacific Lane. Sunshine had seen this strange, new, Pacific Lane visitor, Meltdown, through his favorite napping window and sill. He bolted from inside the warmth of Clement’s house into the cold outside snow, wanting to make friends with this tall, white, roly-poly creature. Devoid of manners, with no prior introduction, Sunshine looked up a second or two, and then boldly brushed against Meltdown’s nether region.

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Sunshine; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

Meltdown immediately looked a bit different than a few seconds prior; though the details were easier to see than articulate. Those with acute hearing thought that they might have heard a minute grunt, much like everyone makes when the morning alarm goes off, coming from his direction. If one was desirably proper, it had to be that, as the only other possibilities were that the snow had begun to attain the ability to speak in a rudimentary fashion, or that someone present had clandestinely farted. A few eyes directed at Bella, who seemed to understand, and shook her head, as if to say; “No, not me.”

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Meltdown; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

Sunshine’s touch had been present during a few other unusual events. That they were unusual was unknown to Sunshine or anyone else other than those presuming to have an ersatz omniscient point of view. Though factually, within the confines of the textual, Pablo’s painful gruff and intimidating outward appearance had been transformed into the sweet look which matched his interior. Genevieve’s Dillon nonchalantly reappeared after years of absence, presumed dead in one of the many habitual Hominid wars, the precise and changing names a subject for those seeking an infinite job; his wrongful demise the result of an intrusive conscription.

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Now that Meltdown had seemed to have stopped melting and arguably had stabilized just after Sunshine’s touch was now noticed by those present; though a few including Bella second guessed what they might have seen with the momentarily based rationalization that Meltdown was not melting as quickly as the loose snow on the ground and trees as he was more tightly compacted; despite that previously she had poo-pooed the ability of paws to adequately compact loose snow.

Magic or just pretty smoke; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license.

As most, Sunshine was totally unaware of any such “unusual”

events, and found this one to also be quite ordinary. Still young, and not having any prior experiences with snowmen, he considered it quite normal for his new pal, Meltdown, not to discernably melt and grunt out a muffled greeting, just as he

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had experienced through contact with other early risers, before coffee.

A bit down Pacific Lane, inside his house, Willy was getting tired of his TV when he once more watched a Hominid news show which oft comically feigned being newsworthy. This morning it had chosen to cover Dark Hominid Obomber (DHO) smiling while futzing with a computer at a table shared in the very least with a partially hidden, black, female hominid, probably with her own computer; and an Oriental woman without one, and seemingly enthralled with whatever DHO was doing with his. The DHO drone said; “The net is still so backward and racist. Almost no pictures of Black men and Oriental women making love. ......

Want to see some of my new ideas? ........ You’re a giggler.

Aren’t you?”

Obomber, Oriental chick, and computer; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

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Willy shut the TV in a somewhat weary and irked search for a smidgeon of truly “new” ideas. He appeared outside, in defiance of his TV, a bit bemused, befuddled, betrayed, bewildered, and be-spirited, boldly saying; “That’s not how you make a snowman. He has only two sections and there should be three.”

Willy; property of the author.

“Good sir. I will have you know that there is a long tradition of fine snowmen with two sections. As an undirected point of order, I’d also like to point out that my name is not Meltdown. It is Reginald. But you can call me Reggie.” Reggie took two steps forward on the legs he would one day have and extended the two open hands he would soon possess.

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Reggie; the kind courtesy of Pexels.com under their CC0 license; modified.

The End

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