The Last Night of the Snow

A band plays the blues in a bar nearby while the snow falls over the park. A train rumbles across the bridge over the river. An old man stops to see it pass, and looks at his watch. He digs his cane into the snow and pushes himself off, limping into the night. A young woman in an apartment by the river throws a blanket over her shoulders and lights a cigarette as she watches the snow drift down over the rooftops. Two teenagers huddle on a couch watching television, his arm around her shoulder, her fingers entwined in his, the high Georgian ceilings of his parents' townhouse drawing any heat away from them. The guitarist takes a mouthful of beer while the singer banters with the uninterested bar patrons, introducing their closing number. The old man trudges through the snow, stopping to pet a stray dog. The young woman extinguishes the butt of her cigarette in a pewter ashtray on the windowsill and draws her blanket closer around her, but does not move from the window, even when the power goes out and the only lights are the moon blue on the snow and the thin orange of her dying cigarette. The boy swears and gets up to fumble in the dark for a candle. The girl takes his hand in hers, her face soft in the dancing shadows of the virgin flame. They look out the window at the white world washed blue, its bustling colours overwritten now by the purity of the snowdrift. Nothing moves except a stray dog here or a hobbling old man there. The world has stopped, frozen over. She looks in his moonlit eyes, and says:
    ---What if this was all there was? Forever and ever?
    And he says:
    ---If this was all there was, then we'd be all there is.
    There is silence for a moment.
    ---What?

*

    ---Do you think the end of the world is coming?
    ---That’s what it looks like through the window.
    ---How many people will die out there tonight?
    ---Enough.
    ---Enough?
    ---Enough to make a difference.
    ---Make a difference to what?
    ---You know, last night when the storm happened, when the lightning lit up my room with a blinding flash, I woke. A second later the thunder rattled my windows. I thought a nuclear bomb had fallen. I thought a war had started.

*

The old man moves slowly across the bridge, stopping once in a while to check his footing on the ice. The band’s last song was cut short when the power died, and now they pack up their gear. The guitarist drains his glass and picks up his pay from the barman, minus the cost of his drinks. The patrons are filing out into the dim night, and the barman is closing up in the dark. The young couple kiss in the candlelight. He takes off his shirt and fumbles with her bra. The woman moves away from her window and pours herself a glass of red wine. The old man stops in an all-night garage and fumbles his fingerless gloves in his pockets to find the change to pay for a plastic cup of tea. The young couple make love on the boy’s parents’ couch. The band stand outside the bar while the drummer loads his kit into his car. The woman watches the lights of a helicopter over the city fade in and out of the clouds. She looks at her watch, then remembers it’s stopped. The old man brushes the snow off his hat as he sits on a high stool at the window under the fluorescent lights, the garage’s backup generator humming quietly outside. He watches his town vanish under a white cloud. The singer lights a cigarette and exhales like a dragon.
    ---You shouldn’t smoke, you know, the guitarist says. It’s bad for your voice.
    ---It think it makes it better. Makes me sound like Bob Dylan.
    ---No, a stroke would make you sound like Bob Dylan.
    ---Yeah. See you next week, then?
    ---See you next week. And take care of your voice, it’s the only one we’ve got.
    With his guitar slung across his back, he disappears into the snow.

*

    ---I saw someone tonight in that house across the river, looking out the window at the snow. Two kids. I thought I should wave.
    ---Didn’t you?
    ---No, I felt silly.
    ---We might have made friends.
    ---We might have made enemies.
    ---You can make enemies every day. Friends are hard to come by.
    ---Harder and harder. When I left the house this morning, there was a helicopter hovering nearby, and people protesting and shouting in the streets. It really felt like the beginning of the end.
    ---And you sound like the beginning of the end of a bad movie.
    ---I was scared. Really scared.

*

The young couple slump, exhausted, on the couch. His fingers are entwined in her hair. Her fingers make small circles on his stomach. The guitarist lopes along the backstreets, avoiding patches of ice, enjoying the crunch of the snow beneath his feet. The old man slips a little and spills what’s left of his tea on the ground, melting the snow. The woman’s glass of wine shakes in her hand. She feels the urge to cry come on, but stops herself before it takes hold. The young couple stumble from the couch to the kitchen without thinking of putting on clothes. They try to order pizza, but their phones have no signal. He makes them both sandwiches instead. The old man can feel his stick sliding on the ground beneath him. He stops to regain his composure, to fix his gloves and his grip on his stick. The woman puts her wineglass on the windowsill because it has started to spill a little. She can’t stop shaking, and she’s not sure if it’s because of the cold or not. She moves from the window and sits in her armchair. The young couple curl on the couch under a blanket after he found a set of battery-operated speakers to plug his iPod into. They knock over a candle. The old man crosses the river again, looking for somewhere warm. The snow blinds him. He loses his footing and falls. His cane skitters across the white. The guitarist tramps towards the river. He is curious about the huddled black shape on the bridge. He looks up to his apartment window on the other bank. It is black, like the rest. The shape on the bridge moans a little and the guitarist can see that it’s an old man who has fallen. He rushes to help him up, handing the old man his cane and taking him by the elbow, lifting him to his feet.
    ---Thank you, the old man says to him.
    ---It’s no problem, the guitarist replies. Are you all right? I can call an ambulance?
    ---No, son, I’m fine, thank you. It just hurts a lot more in the cold.

*

    ---I woke up this morning and my watch had stopped. Do you think that means anything?
    ---I think it means that you read too much into things. It’s an old watch.
    ---But why today? Why the day of the heaviest snow? Why the day of the protests?
    ---Because it’s also the day its battery died. It’s a coincidence.
    ---Is there such a thing?
    ---Of course there is.
    ---Days like these make me wonder.
    ---Put that out, will you? You know I hate it when you smoke.

*

The young couple smell something burning. They jump when they see smoke. Their blanket has caught fire. They try to stamp it out, but remember they’re barefoot. He runs to the kitchen for some water to throw on it, but the tap splutters and dies. The pipes have frozen. She throws another blanket on top, but this too catches fire. He dials the fire brigade on his phone, but there’s still no signal. They grab some clothes and run outside. The old man is limping along the quays, going slowly and carefully now to make sure that he has footing. Two teenagers crash out the door of a house, almost running the old man down. The boy’s shirt and belt are open, the girl is wearing leggings and a bra, with a coat around her shoulders. Both are barefoot. They stamp around in the snow trying to accustom their feet to the cold. The old man asks them what they’re doing half naked on a night like this.
    ---Do you have a phone? the boy asks him.
    ---Do I look like I have a phone, son?
    ---Our house is on fire, and our phones don’t work. Where’s the nearest fire station?
    ---About half a mile that way. The old man points east along the river.
    ---Right, the boy turns to the girl. Let’s go.
They run off, barefoot through the snow.

*

    ---On my way home tonight, I found an old man who’d fallen. It was sad. He was just lying there, in the middle of the bridge outside, like he was waiting to die.
    ---Maybe he was.
    ---Maybe. His stick had fallen too far away from him to reach, and he couldn’t get up without it. He was just lying there…
    ---Well, what did you do?
    ---What could I do? I brought him his stick and helped him up. I offered to call an ambulance, but he said he was OK. He looked like he was homeless.
    ---Did you give him some money?
    ---No. I didn’t realise until later. Besides, I have no money to give him. I can barely afford to live as it is.
    ---You could have bought him tea or a sandwich or something.
    ---I suppose I could have. But I didn’t know.

*

The snow sweeps quietly across the city, burying its landmarks and its streets, reflecting the purple sky back upwards. Streetlights flicker on as power slowly crawls back over the town. Neon signs shudder into life. Windows cast squares on the snow. The guitarist crosses the street into his apartment block. A car passes him, the first he’s seen all night. His key rattles in the icy lock and he takes the stairs two at a time. He drops his guitar inside the door and hangs his coat on the hook. In the living room he finds his girlfriend slumped on the armchair, a glass of wine half-spilled on the floor, an ashtray full of butts on the windowsill.
    ---It’s damn cold outside, he says.
    ---Hasn’t stopped snowing in a week.
    ---The weatherman says tonight’s the last.
    ---I hope so, she says. It feels like an apocalypse.
    ---Do you think the end of the world is coming?