Snow Day

4 tales of people looking to make the most of a day off work due to heavy snow. can they make the most of it?

Snow Day

 

James

 

The phone call had left him with mixed feelings. He was happy that his work had phoned him to let him know that they would not be opening due to the heavy snowfall the city had suffered the previous day. However, he was somewhat annoyed that his boss had phoned him at 7.30am. Still, he was awake now, may as well get up. But what to do? Money was tight, he was struggling to pay bills as it was, so a day in front of the T.V was a needless waste of electricity. He surely can’t be the only person alone on a snow day with no money. What was everyone else doing?

After some deliberation he had decided to go for a walk. After all who doesn’t enjoy going out in the snow, it’s something you just don’t grow out of.

He had no actual route planned, just going where his legs were taking him. James was on the verge of heading home when he noticed something lying outside of the park. He walked cautiously towards it, As it turned out it was something he had not seen in many years - a sledge. He recalled having an old wooden one as a kid, memories of shooting down the huge hill in the park at breakneck speed.

Almost without realizing it, he was entering the park with the sledge, why should t only be kids that can enjoy the snow, they see it as an opportunity for fun, for adults it brings stress, how do I get to work? How do I get home? Do I have enough milk and bread? ‘sod that’ he thought. He barely noticed the puzzled looks he was getting from the kids and their parents as he got on the sledge. The feeling of doing this was even better than the thought, the sledge rapidly picked up speed as it descended the steep hill. This was the best he had felt in some time. Unfortunately that feeling was not to last much longer. He had made the mistake of leaning back on the sledge until he was almost lying down on it. Why he did it was anybody’s guess. A bit of fun, or to add some risk, I guess only James knows. Anyhow, suffice to say he never seen the bushes at the bottom of the hill, he crashed right into them. He certainly heard the distant laughter, he was ready to join them, until he seen his left leg, and the unnatural angle of it as it lay badly broken.

It transpired he had broken his leg in two places, as well as damaging ankle ligaments.

 

A bad Snow Day for James

 

 

 

 

Greg

 

Swiping, seemingly something that a growing number of phone users do these days. It appears that dating apps are to blame for this.

Greg was one of many users of dating apps. The swiping part was almost a reflex now. Right to like someone, Left to reject them. He, like many others I’m sure, could spend quite some time going through the motions, sometimes not fully concentrating on who was on the screen.

Greg had not had much luck thus far. He had signed up almost three months ago, so far he had only had one girl interested, but he did not find her attractive. A left swipe for her.

It had sometimes got him down. He had woken up early that morning, he could not get back to sleep, which annoyed him, he thought that having spent about an hour and a half walking home in the snow the previous evening he would sleep like a baby, however, his body clearly had other ideas.

And so it began, swipe, swipe, swipe. Plenty of girls he liked, just a shame they didn’t like him back.

 

He eventually put his phone aside and got up, today was a bonus day off. The company he worked for were closed due to the heavy snow. He wouldn’t miss work today, but he would miss Laura, the receptionist. Greg had liked her since day one, he knew she was out of his league, or perhaps, that is what he told himself so he would not have to risk rejection and embarrassment by asking her out.

His mind was taken off it by a ping on his phone. It was not a text message he knew that much. Probably just a WhatsApp from a colleague making sure he knew not to come in. Nothing important.

 

It wasn’t until later that morning that he checked his phone. It was not a WhatsApp. It was a ‘Like’ on the dating app. A ‘Like’ from a girl Greg found to be very pretty. He stared at his phone, unsure what to think. A mistake? Maybe she right swiped by accident. He swiped right on her profile too. Now he could contact her.

But what to say. He started it off with: “ Hi, I like your profile, you are very pretty”. She got back to him. In fact they spent the rest of the day chatting.

 

I won’t tell you what was said, as that is none of our business. That being said it led to them exchanging numbers, which in turn led to Greg asking her out. She said yes.

 

A good snow day for Greg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geoff

 

Geoff had the unenviable task of being out in the freezing cold…again. Almost every day, varying times he was out gritting the roads. It seemed to Geoff that this winter would never end. He could not help but envy all the lucky people who were in their nice warm beds, oblivious to Geoff and the many people like him who were helping to keep their roads clear, for their safe journeys the next day.

It was around 6.15 am he arrived home. It was when he got to his gate that he noticed the footsteps on the path that led to his front door. The Postman? No, too early surely. Who else could it be this early. He never got milk delivered, nor a newspaper. He opened the gate and followed the path to his front door. He froze when he got to the door.

His front door lay ajar. Now, he had definitely locked it before he left, that much he was almost certain of. He cast his mind back to earlier that evening when he had left. He had left in a bit of a hurry, but not so much that he forgot to lock up. This was not the time to second guess himself.

He pushed the door open and slowly entered his house, an eerie feeling came over him, he felt that he was not alone. He went into his living room, this was the first room he passed after entering the house. He reached his left hand into the room to flick the light switch on, before pushing the door wide open then entering. Nothing untoward here. Everything appeared to be as he left it.

He went into the next room, a dining room, it was a small room with a table and six chairs sitting around it. Geoff wasn’t exactly the sociable type, so the table and chairs were effectively ornaments, dusty ones at that. Nothing unusual here either.

He was beginning to think that he may well have forgotten to lock the door after all. This was when he heard the sound of the floorboards creaking upstairs. His whole body froze for a moment. This can’t be happening. He was climbing the stairs almost without realizing  it, as if somebody else was controlling his body. It was only when he reached the small landing at the top he realized he had no means to defend himself if there was an intruder. Against his better judgement he continued. There were two rooms upstairs, the first room on his right was his bedroom. The second room was what was originally a guest bedroom, however, that had since been turned into a glorified storage room. He walked into his bedroom first, everything seemed to be as it was. It was not until he had scanned the entire room that he noticed there was something missing, probably the most obvious thing of all. The Cricket bat he had won on a charity night out at work. It had been donated by a top England Cricketer, Geoff was not into cricket so it had just sat in the corner of the room. He heard the floorboards creaking again, this time from behind him. It was not hard to guess where the bat had gone, or where it was about to go. Geoff barely had the chance to turn to face his attacker when the bat struck him between the shoulder blades, the lights went out.

 

Geoff will awake from his enforced nap to discover his house ransacked, almost everything has either been stolen or broken. The one thing that was left untouched…the Cricket bat.

 

A bad Snow Day for Geoff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoe

 

Zoe loathes her job, she works in her local supermarket, and has done for more years than she cared to remember.

The mere thought of going to work gets her down.

Today, however, will be a bit of respite, as soon as she looked out of her window and seen how deep the snow had become overnight she knew work was a no go. The forecast had predicted heavy snow, and it had not disappointed.

Zoe is 36, the realization of the state of her life had been creeping up on her for awhile now. She had a job she disliked, no qualifications, thus making it nigh in impossible to find a better job. Her friends had degrees and jobs, most were married, some with kids, others had moved away.

Zoe had been to college after leaving school, however, she soon realized that higher education was not for her, and dropped out after three months.

There was no escaping the fact that she was in a rut with no obvious way out.

One thing she did enjoy doing, the only thing that even resembled a hobby was reading. It was from this hobby that life was about to change for Zoe.

Zoe had only went to college as a way out of School. The only subject she could stand was English. One of her biggest regrets was that she never worked harder at it. She always enjoyed doing imaginative essays. It had provided her with a bit of escapism when she was writing. She had always thought about getting into writing, but never really pulled the trigger on it.

Today was the day to start though. It was a bonus day off work., may as well make the most of it.

Zoe had thought of ideas for stories in the past, it was now just a case of putting them on paper.

Turned out it was easier than she thought, once she started she couldn’t stop, her fingers cruising around the keyboard as words and ideas came to her. By the days end the first story had been completed, and the second already begun.

It was just after 11pm when Zoe called it a night. Time had escaped her, writing had afforded her a chance to take her mind off her mundane life, it was escapism, disappearing into a place of her choosing with characters she had created. Tomorrow she would upload her story to one of the many sites used by amateur writers to showcase their work. Perhaps she would even research publishers once her confidence grew. She went to bed happy with what she had accomplished.

The writing would give Zoe a whole new lease of life, who knows, maybe one day you will find yourself in a bookshop purchasing one of her novels.

 

This was a good Snow Day for Zoe