Endless snow

Endless snow.

I was outside exhaling smoke from my cigarette when I saw the first flakes making their way down to the ground. It had begun. After hovering around for about a week, it finally decided to start falling. While I smoked my cigarette, I watched the flakes as they made their way down in the uncomfortable silence of the day. There was not a sound anywhere. The soundless air floated around between the ground and the dark, gray clouds. Deep down, I was kind of excited waiting for this day, the beginning of the end. We were highly warned to evacuate the affected area as soon as scientists discovered the big picture. Many took the threat seriously and decided to leave as soon as possible. But few stayed and didn’t bother to try to evacuate the northeastern region. Radio stations and television channels were covering the story and warned that the significant amount of snow might leave houses under snow and that scientist couldn’t predict the amount of snow that it might end up accumulating.

Since it stopped getting cold as it usually did, winters in this part of the country were getting more snowy than usual. With every year that went by, the cold lingered enough to snow like hell. And now, this time we were going to get the biggest, longest, running, snowfall of the season. For the last 5 years or so, we have seen snow fall until the end of May. Summer since to be diminishing. Most days in the summer would only go up to 70 in the middle of July and began getting cold by September. This was climate evolution on steroids.

It’s October and a huge snow cloud covered the eastern part of the country, ready to bury the landscape with a blanket of snow. I smoked my cigarette without any thoughts, as the snow began falling heavily. Scientists had said that the landscape was changing. And that soon this will be a snow covered area. Other parts of the world haven’t been affected; except the drought on the western part of the country. This doesn’t sound like global warming as every one says. It must’ve been the incident with Nasa and their rocket that exploded who are behind all this.

There was an incident a couple of years back where a rocket carrying top secret chemicals to be processed in space exploded as it was traveling up in the stratosphere. Scientist said that there was nothing to worry and that the chemicals burned with the rocket. Were they wrong or were they lying? The latter sounds accurate. They probably knew the whole time. Once I finished my cigarette, I went back in to get the things I needed and to get ready to get out of the storm. I wouldn’t want to stay around until it gets impossible to leave the house. It was getting bad out there. The snow had gotten thick and denser; it was getting hard to see past the falling snow. At this rate, the ground will accumulate inches of snow in no time. News reporters were not joking when they said to abandon the area as soon as possible. The few that stayed behind were getting ready to go somewhere safer.

I didn’t have much with me. I took what I needed the most. When I grabbed my phone, I saw that I had missed my brother’s Walter, and my mother’s, Maria, phone called. My brother Walter left a messaged.

“Ron, I’m heading out. We are getting slammed with so much snow. I didn’t think that it was going to snow this much so fast. I’ll try to scape whichever way possible because I don’t think I’ll get far with the car”, he said

 I called him back, and the voice mail came on. “Walter, be careful, this is no joke, the storm is a threat. It might end up killing us”, was the message that I left him on his phone.

My mother picked up her phone as soon as I called her. “I’m worried. Did you leaved the area”, she said. “Be careful and leave as soon as possible”.

“Yes, I know, it’s getting bad out there”, I responded.

“I’m going to be praying for you and your brother’s safety. But I’m very worried about your brother. His phone is dead. Do you know anything about him?

“No. He called, but I miss it, and he left me a message saying that the snow was terrible up over there and that he was going to tried to scape as soon as possible.”

 I don’t know why you didn’t left sooner?“ My mother told me.

My mother was very worried and said that she was praying for me, and my brother’s safety and for us to make it out alive and safe from the deadly storm. But she was worried about my brother the most because his phone was not in service. She called him but his phone never rang.

I took a peek out the window to see if there were people outside leaving, but I couldn’t see much through the snow. There were the occasionally sight of blurred red light in the distance. The snow made it impossible to see. Now that I think about it, I should’ve left with the people I was staying with.

There was about an inch or two on the ground when I opened the door. I stood outside next to the car in silence for a couple of seconds and wondered if I would be able to make it out of the region in time, or get trapped in the snow. Standing in the silence, the only sound I could hear was the soft thuds of snow hitting the floor at a fast pace, one behind the other one in an endless marathon. I better get going before there is too much on the ground. I hoped in my car and began the trip out, away to a place where there is no snow.

As I drove my way out, I started to feel uneasy and anxious. I was going to die buried by snow. I wasn’t moving away from the storm fast enough. I don’t think I would get far before getting stuck. I definite should’ve left sooner. As I made my way down the street, trying to get away, there where others who were doing the same. As I kept driving, the snow was putting the community to a silent cold sleep, slowly putting everything under its grasp to the mercy of its white, soft, sprinkled death. I better come up with a plan before my car gets buried, and I’m left to die. Thinking about it now, there is no plan. The only plan would be to walked or take shelter somewhere high above the ground and tried to survived until the snow quicks falling. That is if I survived.

As I continued driving through the snow, there were a couple of drivers who needed help, their car was stuck. I did what I could to help them and hoped they made it out alive, by which at this point seem hopeless. We were going to die and get buried by layers of snow. It never crossed my mind that I someday was going to die buried by snow. I have never thought much of the snow. Except when I was a kid. When my brother and used to watched the snow happily through the window when it snowed, and then run out the door to go play with the snow on the ground once it stopped. When we used to built snowmen with the help of our father, and the big smiled we used to wear once the cold wind began hitting our face after our father with all his strength had pushed us down the hill with the sled. And the snowball fights, which one time I ended up with a black eye from the snowball that my brother threw at me. It hurt so much, my eye got sore, and I swore I was going to get him back, but I never got around to actually do it.

Thinking about my brother, I called him with the few bars of battery life that my phone had. But he never picked up his phone; it went straight to voicemail, again. I was worry about him and hoped that everything was well with him. Then, I called my mother.

“Mom, It’s getting real bad out here. The snow it’s making impossible to drive. I’m going to have to ditched my car and start walking pretty soon”. And that I had called my brother but his phone never rang, I told her.

“Ron, I’ll keep praying until you and your brother get home safely”.

“I’m going to go and looked for a secure premise to stayed. Somewhere were there is food and emergency equipment”, I told my mom.

“Try to stayed alive and please come home safe”, my mother said with a worried tone.

“Once I find the location of where I’m going to stayed, I’m going to let you know. Maybe you can let rescue missions know of my location”, I told her.

By now the snow was half way up the tire. Pretty soon, I’m going to have to ditched my car and tried to walk my way out as far as I can, which would be impossible with all the snow that has accumulated. If I take my chances, I don’t think I would end up going that far. My best bet would be to look for a place safe to stayed and hope that a rescue mission is issue and that they find me alive.

I decided to go camp out at a public school. The only nearby by school that I knew was Cook school, the school that I went to as a kid. It was about a 10minute drive from where I was. But with so much snow on the road, it’ll take me forever to get there. I’m going to have to get out of the car and start walking there any minute. The tires on the car are not gripping the ground that much anymore. They kept slipping; the snow is almost all the way up to the top of the tires.

            I spoke too soon because the damn car doesn’t want to moved anymore. The tires kept spinning on all that snow. Wow, how much more snow are we going to get? Now, I had no other choice but to get out and start walking. The door was no good, I couldn’t opened it; there was too much snow accumulated. The car windows were my only option. So, I crawled out through the window and felt out on top of the snow, which was high as my car tires and it was still snowing heavy. There was zero visibility, but I knew where I was and knew the name of the street. I knew my way around. My old friend lived on this street before he moved. I was on Raymond Boulevard and had to walk to Sycamore Street to get to the school.

On top of all that snow, I began walking. It was hard to walk on top of all the snow on the ground and while it snowed heavily. I was better off throwing my self at the snow and then launched my body forward as if I was swimming on water.

About half way there I took a braked. While my body lay motionless, my body slowly sunk in, and more snow poured the rest of my exposed side. The snow buried me alive with coldness. After struggling with the snow, my body exhausted reached the school, and the school still had power; lights were lit. Then, I went towards the trash container and climbed up. The snow wasn’t this high up yet, but soon it will be and even higher. I grabbed the emergency scape latter and climbed all the way up to the roof. Maybe I could get in through the roof’s fire scape door. Luckily the roof didn’t have as much snow as the ground did. I was able to walked better than I did on the ground. Now all I had to do was weight to get rescued from being trap in a building that got buried by snow.

I was so hungry when I got in the school that I immediately went over to the cafeteria and fixed me a meal. Then after eating, I went to the gym to lay down on a gym mat and maybe get some sleep and in the morning check to see how much snow has accumulated. The amount of snow was above the building. I couldn’t open the door going out to the roof. I guess my only option was to wait t get rescue if they find me alive.