Snow

Honorable Mention in 2024-2025 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

The sun was barely up, and it was already 80 degrees out. It didn’t matter that we were in a 50-mile dome, in our air-conditioned homes; the heat was still there, as oppressive as always.

I sat in my chair in the center of my living room, as I always did in the morning, a cup of coffee in one hand, a tablet in the other. Carefully, I scrolled through the day’s headlines, each one more despairing than the last: Power outages in the outer regions. Your fault. Parts of the domes collapsing. Your fault! A Category 6 storm rocking what had once been America’s East Coast. YOU’RE FAULT!

“Grandad!”

I tore my eyes away from the screen, looking up to see my two grandchildren, Ava and Jack, barrelling towards me.

“Well, look who it is,” I smiled, setting my tablet aside. They embraced me tightly, causing me to wince, as a wave of pain overcame my ribs.

Eventually, they loosened their hug and positioned themselves on my lap.

“Can you tell us a story?” Ava asked.

“One about snow,” Jack added.

I froze, a wave of sadness and guilt washing over me. I was beginning to regret mentioning the frozen rain that once fell through the winter months. The way it covered ground, in a great wide white expanse, bringing joy to so many. Now it was all they would ever ask about, and every time it was as though a knife was being driven through my heart.

You owe it to them. Tell them what you took from them!

I thought for a moment, trying to keep the tears out of my eyes, opening my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Finally, I told them, “It was nice,” wishing I could find the right words to capture all I wanted to say.

“It was,” a gruff voice called out from behind me, “if you weren’t the one shoveling it.”

I turned to see my son, leaning against the living room doorway.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling at him.

“Morning to you, too.”

“Dad, can you tell us about snow?” Ava asked.

He thought about it for a moment, looking up at the ceiling.

“Honestly, I don’t remember it that much. Every so often, it would fall from the sky, and there would be so much that we would have no school that day.”

“No school sounds great,” Jack piped up.

My son walked up to him and rustled his hair, “Hey, you don’t have school today, do you?”

Jack nodded.

“Well, I have meetings for the rest of the day. Dad, can you watch over them?”

I nodded, and he turned, leaving the doorway and walking to the study.

“Now where was I?”

“You were telling us how fun snow was!” Ava piped up.

“Right.”

And so, that’s what I did. I told them. Slowly at first, but the more I spoke, the faster the stories came out. I told them how the snow would cover the ground, creating beautiful winter landscapes. I recounted the stories of sledding down steep hills, of the epic snowball fights we would have. I told them about how, when it fell, ponds would freeze over, allowing us to walk on their surface. Soon the headlines faded from my mind, and in that moment, I was just the grandfather to two wonderful grandchildren.

“Grandad,” Jack looked up at me, a look of confusion on his face.

“Yes, Jack.”

“When is it going to snow again?”

“Well, that’s,” I paused, internally panicking, “complicated. I’m–not really an expert on that stuff.”

Tell them you coward. Tell them what you did. What you should have stopped.

“How about I tell you about when your grandmother and I went skiing in Switzerland?”

As I told the story, tears once more began forming in my eyes.

Estella. If only she were here. She knew more about sledding and ice skating and skiing than I ever would. I’d always hated being out in the cold, but to her, it was her second home. Every year at the start of each December, she’d look up at the sky, waiting for the first snowflakes to fall.

Perhaps it’s good she’s gone then. How would she possibly live in a world without snow?

I kept talking for nearly an hour, and by the time I was done, the two of them were already asleep. Carefully, I picked each of them up, bringing them to their rooms, and laying them on their beds.

As I was tucking in Ava, I noticed a piece of paper hanging out from under her pillow. Carefully, I slipped it out, examining it in the dim evening light, and then nearly dropped it when I realized what it was.

In my hands was what appeared to be a school assignment, the question–What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do?– written on top. Underneath, was a crudely drawn sketch of a leafless tree, standing alone on white ground, blue dots falling from the sky. To one side was a hill, with two children sledding down it, smiles on their faces.

I was 100 when the snows fell. I was 101 when temperatures reached 2 degrees above sustainable levels. I was 120 when we started living in domes. I was old enough where I could have done something. Old enough to know I should have done something.

Tears were now sliding down my cheek. I walked back to my sleeping grandchildren and, leaning over them, whispered in their ears, “I’m sorry.”