Hell Frozen Over

It had been snowing relentlessly for days and the cars parked along the streets of Hell's Kitchen were buried up to their side mirrors. Coming down the brownstone stoops, owners gripped their shovels with gloved hands and growled at the work that lie ahead. Scarfed and hatted pedestrians kept their heads low against the wind and tried to circumnavigate the pools of slush which formed at every intersection without getting a bootful of chilled water. Newscasters on the radio were having fun coming up with names for the storm that referenced the end of the world, then chuckling at their own wit.

Two children, exiled from a shuttered schoolhouse, busied themselves by building the snowfort to end all snowforts. It had taken them the better half of the day to burrow in from the bottom using an old coffee can, and out the top, forming a combination turret and observation post. Their little blue knit caps peeked conspicuously out from the mounds of white as they prepared to do battle with an invisible adversary. Their armory of snowballs was well-stocked. An ambitious photography student slipped on a patch of ice and broke her camera. She sat with her legs splayed, gazing mournfully at the wreckage.

As the clouded sun quietly toddled off to bed, the blankets of snow took up the task of reflecting the city lights with enough intensity that the sun was hardly missed. The evening sidewalks were lit by a moonglow, as though they had somehow become gently radioactive. A stooped woman in a green parka took her dachshund for a walk. The dachshund sniffed the frozen ground at the base of a tree, uncertain. It lifted a hindleg without much enthusiasm, but conditions didn't seem right. The dog abandoned this attempt and continued along in hopes of finding a more suitable spot to conduct its business farther ahead. The stooped woman just wanted to get it over with so she could go inside and bathe her feet in scalding water.

An Irish youth came bursting out the entrance of the corner pub. Without hesitation he bounded across the icy sidewalk and dove headfirst into the snowbank with a muffled crunch. His short legs flailed in the air, like a vaudeville clown wedged in a barrel. His companions who followed him out of the pub doubled with laughter at his sudden lunacy. He pulled himself out, shook the snow from his wet hair and grinned.

"What if there'd been a hydrant there?" a laughing girl exclaimed.

He shrugged. "There wasn't."