See You Next Year by Mark Barlex

Like all large things taken for granted, the North Atlantic Current knew the importance of what it did and thought long and hard before jacking it in.

An elemental system shifting oceans of warm water from Mexico to Europe slowed in protest at anthropogenic climate change then stopped altogether.

Nature’s last laugh. A landmass expecting to fry now pondered winters twenty degrees below average. No North Atlantic Current, no band of temperate air wrapping the Celtic fringe. Have another ice age, Nature seemed to be saying. Exactly what you didn’t order.

From Galway to Hamburg, people laboured through a winter of deadening snow and ice.

The next year, they stayed at home.

The year after that, they felt like staying in bed.

The year after that, they did.

*

Yawning in the office. Mid-morning naps that stretched into afternoon. Near-polyphagic binge-eating. A yearning to nest.

Cues to go home. To lock the front door. To eat, hydrate, wrap up warm in loose, comfortable nightwear. To crawl under the recommended four blankets and a duvet.

To close eyes.

Breathe in.

And out.

To sleep.

*

It’s the second week of November. Autumn crashes into winter and birds and billionaires fly south. Under sheet-cloud stretching from horizon to horizon, metropolitan Sheffield hunkers down in the foothills of the Pennines.

It’s like Christmas, except it isn’t. School ends early. The caretaker locks up. Shop staff tap watches, keys in hand. The last visitor to the cash-and-carry buys water, energy bars and dog food, trolleys it to the car park.

Lights in office blocks are turned off top to bottom, a floor at a time. Police chivvy, parents usher. Day begins to fade. Probably, nothing bad would happen if you stayed out another day, night, afternoon. But your world is shutting down, and so should you. Who knows what roams the city while you sleep? Elk from over the frozen North Sea? Followed by wolves.

Teachers wave to pupils. Colleagues shake hands on the tram. “See you in Spring,” they say, with northern English understatement. Aunts, sisters, mothers-in-law call from the next town. “See you soon,” they say with practised optimism, because who knows if they will?

The sheet-cloud tightens, crimping in hospital corners where suburb meets moor. Beneath, the air goes still and snow begins to fall. Gracefully at first. Then in ugly clumps. It settles on cars and post-boxes, banks against trees and darkened shop windows.

Street-lights go out. Curtains are drawn, TVs, toasters and bar-fires turned off, un-plugged for reasons of safety. Children are tucked under bedlinen. Hair stroked and foreheads kissed. Bottles of water with easy-use, pop-out nozzles left on bedside tables.

 “Goodnight,” parents say, but not, “Goodbye,” because they will – absolutely will – see them next year. After Christmas. After some of their birthdays. A week before the ice begins to melt, the rivers run free, and the football starts again.

*

In a two-bed, new-build semi he knows could be better insulated, a man labours to shut the front door and makes his way to the kitchen.

Through the window, the larch-lap garden fence he creosoted in May is frosted white. Ice encases the concrete bird bath. It hangs in jagged fingers from the whirligig rotary clothes-line and sparkles on the peg-bag he forgot to bring in.

Methodically, he reviews the supplies he’s hoarding for Spring. Pot Noodles. Cream of chicken soup. Bake-at-home bread. Butter. Long-life milk. A family tin of spaghetti hoops because it was cheap. Four cans of Fanta because he likes the taste. Candles. Matches. The tin opener it took him two days to find last year.

He fills a bottle with water. Leaves the tap dripping to minimise frozen pipes.

Upstairs in the back bedroom, he changes into pyjamas. On the double bed, he lays four blankets and a duvet, with breathable cotton, Captain America cover.

He crawls underneath, lays his head on the pillow (thin, to avoid neck-ricks), closes his eyes, and thinks of snow.

He opens his eyes.

He gets out of bed.

Goes to the bathroom.

Brushes his teeth.

Goes back to bed and contemplates the majesty of winter.

Gets up.

Goes to the toilet.

Goes downstairs. Tests the front door. Puts on the chain. Arranges his soft-leather hiking boots with moulded rubber soles more neatly below the coat rack.

Goes back to bed.

Across the room, above a cooling radiator, the curtains move faintly.

He closes his eyes. Allows his mind begins to drift. It’s November the seventeenth. He’ll sleep until March.

*

In February, he wakes up.

Orange light from the landing spills across the carpet.

He reaches for the bottle of water by his bed.

Drinks.

Lies back.

Sighs.

Breath condenses above him.

Light from the landing nags. Cold water from the bottle sinks through his body.

He sits up.

Stands up.

Goes to the toilet.

Yawns.

In the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, he sits at the table, blinks and drums his fingers. 

Opens and closes a cupboard door.

Runs a tap.

Resolves not to eat.

Eating will keep him awake.

He goes upstairs.

Comes down again.

Decants spaghetti hoops into pan and warms them through.

Eats.

In the living room, he pulls back the curtains. The window is scarred with frost.

He’s cold, he tells himself. That’s why he woke up. So, back in the bedroom, he takes off his pyjamas and puts on his clothes. Shorts. Long Johns. Vest. Flannel shirt. Salopettes with cross-back braces. Patterned, woollen jumper. Socks.

In the hall, he considers the front door. Wonders if moisture has swollen the frame. How high snow is banked up outside.

He fiddles with the chain.

Rattles the letter box.

Puts on his boots to see how they fit.

Slips into the goose-down jacket he found in the sales.

Snood.

Mittens.

The faux-fur hat with ear flaps he bought on a whim.  

He stands at the front door.

Breathes in.

Breathes out.

Takes off the chain.

Pulls on the latch.

Pulls harder.

The door jerks open.

He checks for wolves.

Steps outside.

*

Cold grips the man’s face. White sky stretches epically. Winter has obliterated his world, lines, distance and angles flattened by snow. It creaks under his boots.

At the end of his cul-de-sac, he turns onto the high street. Shop fronts are coated white. The bus shelter has been buried. The black and grey of the church spire reaches into empty air, church hall (with playgroup and community café) huddled below.

He walks. A hundred yards. Two hundred. A quarter of a mile.

On what must be the ring-road he stops. Considers the view. The white hills of the city. The white moors beyond.

He sets off again, labours north. Snow collects in underpasses, smears over box-junctions, reaches his thighs.

He stops. Rests. The salopettes are holding up, but his boots are wet and heavy. Ice forms on his gloves. He’d like to sit down but knows he shouldn’t. Tells himself he has enough spaghetti hoops in the tank to go further. Salutes his own foresight. 

A mile further on, at the retail park, factory outlets crouch in defensive positions. The sky seems to open. Pale light floods the car park. He stands alone; warrior; echo of a previous world.

Behind the pet superstore, something heavy crashes against metal. Then silence. Another crash. Silence. Another.

Curious, the man strides down the service road to the back of the building.

In the delivery yard, he sees a shape against the snow. It’s brown and round. Its front legs are muscular and bowed. Massive back. Square, bristly head and rounded ears.

He watches it shoulder-charge the steel shutters of the loading bay.

They ripple but hold.

Backing up, the shape snorts.

Thrashes its head from side to side.

Prepares to charge.

Stops.

Sniffs.

Turns.

Stares with yellow eyes.

Not a wolf, the man thinks. A bear, a long way from home. It couldn’t sleep either.

The bear stands up.

The man waves.

The bear snorts and drops onto all fours.

The man retreats up the service road.

The bear shuffles after him.

At the icy car park, the man turns. Walks briskly. Bears have poor eyesight he seems to remember. Or bad hearing. If chased by one, run downhill.

The car park is broadly level.

The bear trots behind him.

The man jogs to the ring-road. Two hundred yards up its slight incline he glances back. The bear has begun to lope.

Can he outrun a bear, the man wonders? Not in salopettes. If cornered by a bear, shout and wave your arms, he tells himself. Or was that for lions?

He looks back. The bear is picking up speed.

If one catches you, play dead.

The bear stops. It stands up again. It’s very large.

The man picks up his pace. Head down, he wades, stiff-legged, through the snow. Veers into the high street. Speeds past the church – spire, hall, playgroup and community café.

At the shops, he looks back.

He can’t see the bear. Perhaps it’s lost interest. Or it’s about to round the corner. Bear claws are non-retractable. Unusually in the animal kingdom, the back feet are larger than the front.

He burrows into the snow filling the bus shelter. Curls into a ball. Counts backwards from a hundred and thinks about things that aren’t bears. Duvets. Creosote. Counts upwards to a hundred. Peg-bags. Fanta. Counts backwards again.

He listens.

Nothing.

There’s snow in his salopettes. Cold seeps up through his boots. He wonders which is worse, being mauled or freezing. Adrenaline has burned through the spaghetti hoops.

He burrows out of the bus shelter.

Looks around.

Scampers in the direction of his house.

*

The front door is ajar. Snow has crept over the threshold.

There’s no bear in the hall.

The man creeps inside.

The living room is empty.

There’s no bear in the kitchen.

Or in the garden.

He tiptoes upstairs.

No bear lurks on the landing or bathroom.

He goes downstairs.

Shuts the front door.

Leans against it.

Puts on the chain.

He takes off his mittens. Unpeels his snood. Shrugs off his jacket. Unlaces his boots.

Back in the kitchen, he rinses the pan. Warms cream-of-chicken soup. Bakes bake-at-home bread.

Eats.

Looks into the garden.

Wonders how he didn’t bring in the peg-bag. Speculates on its condition when thawed.

Goes upstairs.

In the bedroom he takes off his jumper and unhooks his salopettes. Begins to unbutton his shirt.

Stops.

Sniffs the air.

Turns

Something massive wheezes under the Captain America duvet and blankets. One vast woolly foot with non-retractable claws hangs out at the top of the bed. An even bigger one hangs out at the bottom.

He inches to the door.

Edges onto the landing.

Considers the bus shelter.

Retreats to the spare room.

Closes the door.

Silently, he steps out of his salopettes. Takes off his shirt. Unrolls his socks.

From the built-in wardrobe, he quietly takes blankets, a pillow, a duvet with breathable cotton Finding Nemo cover. Lays them on the bed. Slides underneath.

Orange light from the landing glows under the threshold.

He breathes in.

Out.

Shuts his eyes and thinks about baked beans. Birds flying north. Football.

Opens them.

Gets up.

Props a chair under the door handle.

Gets back into bed.

Behind him, the Pennines slope up into cloud. Wind blows and loose snow whips against the window. 

He wonders about going to the toilet.

Decides he can wait until spring.

Mark Barlex

Image – Suburbs under the snow from dd