the snowman - revisited

The snowman grinned malevolently as the wind whipped and the snow swirled. Wind chill was no concern of his, though the crunch of minus thirty slowed him somewhat. Still, he could endure the blizzard for as long as it took. Laughing now into the howling gale he raised those thin black arms skyward and called for this menace to run unabated for forty days.

What could the Kreuzer’s do but sing in their four-door sedan, the yellow lines of the highway, long disappeared into the white? Mister believed he’d pulled off to the shoulder. He’d thought he’d heard the crunch of the gravel shoulder beneath the snow tires he’d taken care to install the weekend before. But what good were snow tires if you couldn’t see the road? So it was, with the candles and blankets that Missus always stowed in the trunk, that the four of them hunkered down to wait it out.

The snowplow found them first. He’d slowed just enough to keep it on the road after the collision. Still the plow blade divided the car up through the back seat. Not that it made much difference. The carbon monoxide had done the hard work.

Arriving at the Kreuzer’s home, the officer wondered at the two coal lumps lying atop the drift that covered the front door. He told the others, “It was like Frosty’d been buried alive."

The ride in:             Temp -17'C Wind 16 ks NNE

The ride home:       Temp -16'C Wind 15 ks NNW