Christmas Special (part two)

©2011 David Jasmin-Green

It wasn't until Ian was about to step outside that he realised it was snowing. Actually it was snowing very heavily, and as he made his way along the street he could barely see where he was going. He traipsed through a good six inches of virgin snow with not a footprint in sight, which was surely impossible in the town centre on the busiest evening of the year. “This doesn't make sense,” he muttered. “I can't remember anyone in the pub saying anything about snow, and I'm sure there was no mention of it on the weather forecast. If there was I'd have worn my boots, because it'll ruin these bloody shoes in no time. Justin only popped outside for a smoke an hour or so back, so if this lot has come down since then think what it'll be like later on.....”
Because the wind was blowing a flurry of huge, clinging snowflakes into Ian's face it took him quite a while to reach the town's modestly sized bus station, though it was only a few hundred yards away from the pub, and when he got there it was utterly deserted, and so was the taxi rank just around the corner. “Daft bastards've cancelled the buses just 'cos of a wee drop of shnow, sonny,” an old, drunken Scotsman barked as he staggered past Ian. “Doubt if you'll get a taxi either, fuckin' Pakis dunnae like the cold, sho you're gonna have to use yer legs fer once.”
“Thanks for the info,” Ian replied. “Watch how you go.” He started walking in the direction of home, though it was a fair distance and the journey was obviously going to take some time. The Scotsman started whistling 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland' as he disappeared into the blizzard, a twee song that particularly got on Ian's tits.....
He tried to call Pete to warn him about the weather but Pete didn't answer his phone, and neither did Justin, which wasn't surprising considering the racket in the Dog. He tried a couple more friends with no success and then the Dog's land line, but no one answered that either. A few minutes later it occurred to him to phone his mum and dad to tell them where he was and maybe cadge a lift home, but curiously they failed to answer too. Neither of Ian's parents possessed a mobile phone because of what his father referred to as 'nasty, cancer causing microwaves,' but he guessed it was because they were old and set in their ways and technology scared the shit out of them - they still struggled to programme the DVD recorder, though Ian had spent hours trying to teach them what he regarded as common sense. Usually it wasn't a problem because they rarely went out of an evening, especially over the festive period (which they considered particularly dangerous), so surely they should have answered the land line – they always answered the land line. Maybe the snow is interfering with the signal, Ian mused.
It wasn't a ridiculously long walk home, Ian mused, and he knew from experience that in ideal conditions he could complete the journey in a little over half an hour, but trudging myopically through the ever deepening snow made the prospect considerably more difficult. There was a short-cut across the site of the long defunct Sugar Leaf airport, an almost perfectly flat hundred odd acre stretch of open land that was part recreational area and part nature reserve. The only problem was finding the cul-de-sac that led to that field from Keale lane, a road the name of which Ian couldn't recall. Keale lane was the long, winding road that he had just started trudging along. Legoland, his dad had called the area when he was a kid, because the late sixties houses all looked alike. There were a dozen or more turnings along the length of Keale lane and they all looked pretty similar at the best of times, but the snow was still coming down thick and fast, and in the white-out the turnings all looked the bloody same.
Eventually he found the turning, mainly through trial and error. He wiped the clinging snow off the sign of every side road he passed in the hope of recognising the right one, and he struggled all the way down two cul-de-sacs and back again before he stumbled upon Delaney close. When he started off across the blindingly white expanse of snow marking the edge of the Sugar Loaf, as the locals referred to the site, Ian had to guess which direction to take because there were no visible landmarks to aim for. He chose an angle of roughly forty five degrees to the left, said a little prayer and hoped for the best. The wet, sticky snow was already melting through his thin jacket, the wind was bitter and he was getting disturbingly cold.....

Ian had no idea how long he wandered back and forth across the Sugar Loaf, but it seemed like a ridiculously long time. He drove himself crazy thinking about polar explorers getting lost in blizzards and freezing to death, and then he recalled a film he had seen years ago about a man and woman whose Piper Cherokee crash landed in the Australian outback hundreds of miles from civilisation. They walked for days on end, inadvertently travelling in a circle, and eventually the poor bastards ended up exactly where they started. Ian couldn't remember what the film was called or how it ended, but maybe his internal censor was hiding the outcome from him - maybe it was best not to remember..... The snow was still falling relentlessly, and he couldn't see a damned thing.
“This is crazy,” he said through gritted teeth, feeling foolish for talking to himself. “I know I haven't been over here for a few years, but it's impossible to get lost on the Sugar Loaf because it simply isn't big enough. If I walk in a straight line, sooner or later I'll stumble across the boundary.”
He remembered that the council had received a substantial lottery grant to tart up the plot, and the work had been completed towards the end of the previous summer. According to his dad they had laid a network of paths, gouged out a surprisingly large lake towards the centre and planted hundreds of saplings, but he saw no evidence of that – all he could see was flat, featureless white wasteland. “Surely I can't miss the houses that surround this place,” Ian continued. “When I find reach the edge all I have to do is wander back and forth until I find the three big Scots pines that mark the bottom of Hannaman road, and then I'm approximately half a mile from home – easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I'm cold and wet, pissed off and worried shitless – I'm panicking like a lost puppy, for Christ's sake, but everything's going to be all right. I'll just use one of those army marching songs to keep my spirit up. Me boots are 'eavy, me knickers are tight, me bollocks are swinging from left to right, left, left, left right left.....”

Some time later Ian stopped dead in the white, featureless wilderness and attempted to gather his thoughts. “This is stupid,” he muttered, shivering and rubbing the snow from his eyes. “It's impossible. It's absolute bollocks. If this is Your idea of a joke, God, bloody pack it in, because I don't find it in the slightest bit funny. And if it's a test or a punishment or something kindly explain the whys and wherefores so that I can react accordingly. Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I wanna go to bed, I had a little drink some time ago and it's gone right to my head. To tell the truth I'm getting worried, God - I'm starting to feel a teensy-weensy bit frightened.”
Ian tried to call his parents again, but predictably enough there was no answer. All of a sudden he realised that his phone battery was dangerously low, and when he tried to call the pub the damned thing died on him. “Oh, for fuck's sake!” he yelled. “Of all the times to let me down you choose now, you useless piece of oriental tat!” He didn't even know what time it was, because like a lot of people he hadn't worn a watch for years as he relied completely on the multitasking capabilities of his phone. “Help! For God's sake, somebody help me!” he screamed. Just then he heard a faint sound on the wind, a vague, distant tune, maybe. It was a tune, and he recognised it - it was a soft, girlish voice singing 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland,' of all things, but then it was Christmas.....