“When is it supposed to snow?” she asked.
“Four o’clock,” he told her.
“I thought they said four thirty,” she recalled, furrowing her eyebrows with a look of confusion.
“They moved it to four.” He spoke in a monotone and refused to look up.
“Why?” she wondered.
“I don’t know,” he responded curtly.
“What’s the occasion?”
“The first of December.”
“Already?”
“Yes.”
“I could have sworn it was still November.” The woman laughed and the man sighed. They both sat in the living room, with the man sitting in an ornate chair reading a novel while the woman sat by the window. She looked at her watch excitedly and then back outside. Abruptly, hoards of small white flakes began to rain down on the streets. “Honey, it’s starting,” she cried out. He chuckled and walked over to the window and sat next to her. “The quality seems a little worse than last year,” she added disappointedly.
“They must’ve slashed the weather department’s budget.”
She unlocked the window and eased it open as she extended the palm of her hand outwards, such that she could feel the light touch of the flakes on her skin. “Oh, they ought to give them a little more so that they can at least make it cold.”
“It’s more pleasant for the kids to play in this way.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said dutifully.
The man laughed and placed his arm around her shoulder, embracing her. “Let’s at least be grateful for any snow at all. Remember three years ago?” They both laughed a bit at that. “The precipitation budget can’t always accommodate snow.”
“Oh, I know,” she responded happily, “I just wonder what it must have been like when there were no budgets or schedules––when it just happened.”
“It is better this way.”
“Is it?”
“We have control,” replied the man rather cheerfully. He gave her a light kiss on the forehead and exited the room towards the kitchen.
“Perhaps,” she conceded in a whisper as she stared out at the blizzard. She grew impatient and got up from her seat by the window, moving towards the center of the living room and grabbing the remote from the coffee table. She clicked the power button and suddenly the room was illuminated in the pale glow of the television screen which had been mounted onto the wall opposite the couch.
The room’s design had about it a peculiar sense of simplicity. The style was quite geometric, such that the coffee table resembled a triangle that had melted into a mix of three wildly uneven sides. The floor was made up of wooden boards that had been shaped into hexagons and fit neatly together. The couch also had the appearance of a hexagon but with the lower half cut off and the middle carved out so that the two outer sides somewhat faced each other. It was on this hexagonal couch that the woman sat and began to watch the television. Images of kids playing in the snow flashed over the screen as the news anchorman celebrated the occasion by reporting on it in a manner typical of newsmen: with an oddly robotic tone but enough inflection in just the right places. They never showed his face.
The husband returned and sat next to his wife on the couch, as he placed his arm around her shoulder while holding a colorful drink with the other. The woman looked to her left out the window for a moment before posing a question. “Why do you think it stopped?”
“It hasn’t, and I haven’t a clue why you are so bothered by––”
“No––but really.” Both the woman and the man looked left towards the outside. He sighed, deciding it was better to indulge than to fight at this point.
“One day it must’ve stopped.” He shrugged.
“How peculiar,” she responded, “but shouldn’t there be a reason?”
“I suppose we’ll never know.”
“Do you imagine anyone does?”
“Someone always knows.”
“And why don’t they want all of us to know?”
“Maybe we wouldn’t want to know.” The man let out a quick laugh. “This is the way it is now,” he told her softly and lovingly.
“I suppose you’re right,” she responded. As the two sat on the couch, the woman got up and made her way to the window. She grabbed the curtains and gazed once more at the tiny white flakes drifting towards the ground. And then she pulled them shut.