The Blizzard of '26
The world's biggest storm, as you read this, closes in on New York City, and thoughts on 'Untitled,' Story XXIII.
Thoughts are coming at me at a thousand miles an hour this morning. I rarely post the day I write, but this morning, people, we are coming at you live, live and unedited from downtown Cobble Hill Brooklyn, where not a single man, woman, or child has any idea of what is about to hit us, and it is all very exciting.
Snow, baby.
Snow.
Real snow.
24 inches? 16 inches? 157 thousand inches?
Zero inches, of course, wah, wah, wah, is a very real possibility, too.
Anyone who’s ever loved meteorological predictions that take out entire seaboards knows “oh, so sorry, only zero inches” is always a distinct possibility, and let’s face it, the likely scenario. This is New York City, not Nebraska.
We are jilted lovers, all of us, pining hopefully through years of underwhelming calamities, waiting for the Big One that stops time and human civilization and closes schools, which I’ll come to.
Anyway, this Nor’Easter just might — please, please, please — finally be the one. Imagine my “please, please, please” coming from a fed-up child, head cast backwards, arms rigid at his sides, imploring the heavens in deep and guttural groans of frustration.
Now, shhh...
Hear that?
That’s rain.
The rain is just beginning to tap, tap on the living room air conditioner that I still haven’t taken to the basement — “Sweetheart, it’s February” — and, let me tell you, gentle readers, that plucking rain is going to turn to snow at some point after 1pm, and then our little blizzard is going to push on through like Little House on the Prairie for three days and four nights. The brownstone sidewalks will be littered with lost mittens, trapped Ubers and men having heart attacks, shovels jammed firmly into wet snow drifts, dogs in foot mittens, Donner parties, etc.
So, here I am, like a big kid, typing away, dreaming of yesteryear and school closures coming over the kitchen radio. Those early pyjamed mornings as an elementary school student, standing in the kitchen like it was Christmas morning, more excited than actors on Oscar Day, waiting on the school closure report. No holiday could compete with this.
They even scheduled these impromptu inclement weather holidays into the school calendar. Gather around my little Global Warmers: they tagged three days on at the end of the school year.
Why?
Because They Knew The Storm Was Coming.
*
Some of you may remember school closure announcements.
Others may remember radios.
… West Windsor School District, Princeton Day School delayed opening, Pennington Prep, Flemington Friends Academy…
… Still not Hopewell… who is running New Jersey?…
And again, five minutes later…
…West Windsor School District, Princeton Day School is now a full closure, Pennington Prep, Flemington Friends Academy, Hopewell Public Schools…
Hopewell Public Schools!!!
No three words every created such joy in our little Hopewell hearts than those three words coming from WHWH 1350 AM.
*
That is, we don’t have one of our “so-sorry-people, it was zero inches,” and provided this storm is as once-in-a-decade as advertised, then my current story will turn out to be an act of deep, awe-inspiring soothsaying then you’re going to have to trust me.
Why?
Because I’ve been working on a story for the last couple weeks.
And it about a snowfall in New York City.
Yes.
Correct.
A snowfall.
“I began to snow,” it begins, curiously.
THE ARK
If I don’t have a heart attack in front of the building shoveling later, maybe story 25 for April?
*
25!
I’m almost a quarter of the way to 100, if you’re still here and counting along.
*
So, yes, Story XXIII, ‘Untitled,’ was brief.
Eleven words, two quotation marks, two periods and one little em-dash.
There it was.
I knew early on I’d have one piece of microfiction.
I would wait until it arrived. Then, it did, and there it was.
And I want to say this: if you think I just typed
I struck my son — once.
“We don’t hit,” he cried out.
and went on my merry way, you are seriously mistaken.
I have never spent so much time on two sentences in my life. I poked and prodded and swapped and situated and cast and recast and settled and unsettled until I was throwing pens across the room.
It needed to be a story, for starters, with a beginning, middle and end. It needed to engage the reader. It needed every word to do a load-bearing job. Even the carriage returns were called to duty.
To wit:
I needed the “out,” for example. Otherwise it would be the simple idea of crying as in weeping, which sacrifices ethical outrage somehow.
Can’t repeat the word hit tonally, but there was more than that using “struck” the first time. “Struck” introduces something formal and rigid that creates a personality, even a back story in the father.
The late-breaking change (after posting twelve words in the teaser post, was a discovery, too. You may have noticed I removed the “only” from the puzzle and swapped for the em-dash. Now, eleven words. The em-dash adds temporality, a new thought, something defensive, a moment left to the imagination of the reader.
My rule for microfiction, and I have no idea if this is a thing, but it became a thing for me: the “story” needed a beginning, middle and end. I believe I got there. The moment had a before and after. And, I believe, the narration also has a long-after feel to it, a moral residue that has stained.
I believe you can visually see the child looking at the father, if not turning up to him.
Heavens no, it couldn’t be daughter. “Man hitting girl” would completely derail a reader. But “child” was too distant. I needed the possibility of letting you bring a face to the son.
The ethical root is, of course, the story. If that isn’t clear, then I failed and no amount of explaining the story’s meaning here will rescue me.
The order of phrases and clauses mattered. Story XXIII was like testing jigsaw puzzle pieces. Every pattern was tested for fit until it popped in snugly.
Interestingly, my co-authors all went subtly different directions, according to their particular muses.
I struck my son only once. He cried out, “we don’t hit.”
“We don’t hit” he cried out. I only struck my son once.
"We don't hit" he cried out. I struck my son only once.
Some else really bothers me: I wasn’t clear the story needed — in addition to the quotation marks and periods specifically called for — the silent, Almighty Holy Ghost of the paragraph return.
Untitled is an entirely different story without a paragraph return.
I mean: in microfiction it might not even be a story without the paragraph return.
I'd forgotten about the radio announcements. Thank you for bringing that back! You also brought back Hurricane Gloria, when I lived on Bergen Street, way back when. We were so ready! I remember walking the streets in the pouring rain, hoping for a total destruction that never arrived. Also, I love that son, so righteous in his response. Thanks for posting my attempt at your micro. Super fun! No shoveling that snow!
Yeehaw! Join the snow globe. All you newbies, inexperienced, snow loving— 2”— how beautiful— it’s a novelty—accumulations be damned until—WTF.
You had me at Little House, Michael Landon was a master at making his audience cry. Pass the Kleenex up this way, the Nor’easter is totally missing us—or maybe not? Already have 3’ in the yard, but could always use more ‘freshies’. Ah, the vivid memories of waiting in bed in the morning darkness for mom to walk in to tell me school is closed due to too much snow—or listening to WTLB 1310 AM. ( boy that number just came out of nowhere!) Too much was and never will be—part of my vocabulary. Watch your body posture when shoveling, remember—don’t overdue, maximum pain impact hits at 48 hrs later. Oh, and don’t forget to hydrate. Love your blizzard story!