The Snow
Why they did it I do know but the weather war was very one sided, some said it was fear of immigration others a jealousy of resources. What ever the reason I grew up in a snow dome in a remnant of the peoples of Europe. Life was hard in the domes but I knew nothing else, I had no comparison, those around me were not so fortunate – they had seen their world obliterated – wiped out in a flurry of white soft down that did not stop nor cease for two whole years.
The dome was big enough to hold twenty people comfortably – there were 40 odd of us by the time I was ten – many children but some waifs and strays found out on the packed hard ice. We mined the ice sometimes, making little tunnels that glowed blue even in the yellowest flame. Sometimes we found people frozen into perpetual fear or just seemingly asleep. We always took them back to the dome for the death ritual and a feast was held that night.
Bellies full we would dream of the world our parents spoke of, green grass and a yellow sun that cut through the haze of silver that had always marred my skies.
Granny, not sure she was actually anybodies granny but she was Granny to all of us, would sit and tell us stories and do number rhymes so we would know how to tally supplies when we were old enough. She taught us how to repair even the most frail of old clothing and we all had patchwork jackets made by her.
My 21st birthday saw me hunting the bears that had come from the North and walked over ice bridges that had not been there before, this was dangerous work, it was essential work, the bears could devastate whole ice domes plus they were good eating and the fur made good thick flooring and lined the baby cots. I was trained to use the precious guns and the tube weapons rendered out of old building materials we had mined from the snow banks.
We dug tunnels down into the old sewers and train networks, into old basements and natural caves, we found wonders and lost friends in cave ins, we moaned the loss of their flesh bruised and rotten on the bone.
It was hard but it was home. Then the fire began to wash at out piecemeal population, targeting the domes and obliterating us, those that ran in panic were bound to die on the ice. Fear welled up and pushed us to retreat into the tunnels we had built, stalactites of orange pink seemed to ooze into being around us.
I was harsh and they followed. The young and the old hid with supplies, and we scavenged what would could from the shattered domes across our wasteland.
I knew that soon we would grow hungry and thin, I took a party out onto the surface, camouflaged in old sheeting we crept near a camp, the metal birds I knew as planes from old half eaten story books, sat parked around us. The creatures that had slaughtered my world not once but twice were laughing and drinking around a fire so large and wasteful we could feel the heat from our lonely perimeter.
Their weaponry was far superior to what we had, we waited and they drank themselves into a stupor. We attacked, or at least attempted too – I lost five snow hardened warriors to the lasers net, we collected what we could of them for the death ritual and then slunk back to plan. The solution was obvious and so we climbed into our tunnels once more. We calculated using Granny’s numbers and oozed our way out of a small opening into the midsts of their camp, to do so we had spent four hour hacking our way through packed ice.
I worried that they would by now be awaking from their slumber but they were not, they were not creatures like I had supposed, the impression had been given by the protective hats they wore, we bound them with nylon rope we found in the crates littering their camp. We carried them to our entrance whole and squeezed them through one at a time. We took down the laser net and carried away the crates and ripped out the electronics of the planes and syphoned the fuel from their tanks, their hauls were not made of anything I knew how to scavenge though and so we left them thereto rot.
We would eat well for weeks.
I began planning how to attract more of these people and their bumper load of goods, I had my people build an ice dome within the tunnels safe from the sky fire and we put fakes out on the surface. We would feast well when ever their greed over came them and they came to purge our land. Our death ritual was an honor, now I made a new one – a curse upon those that tried to take form us – we took their lives to sustain us, besides we all agreed ememies tasted better.
Posted: Friday, April 1st, 2011 @ 1:26 pm
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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