Episode 6: Legacies - Page 38

Episode 6: Legacies - Page 37

Episode 6: Legacies - Page 36

SNOWPOCALYPSE: A Stronger Special Edition!

Merry Christmas, Stronger fans! Here's a short(ish) story for your enjoyment. It may or may not be 8,000 words, so take your time. Go Beavs! 

Haley Hendricks was as happy as a clam. Curled up in her comfiest armchair, a steaming mug of tea stewing on the table, and a good book in her hand --- this was how dead week should be, not some wild-eyed, caffeine-riddled scavenger hunt through nine weeks of notes searching desperately for concepts, dates, and vocabulary that might just possibly be on the final.

A quick series of knocks came to the front door. Too cozy to get up and cross the room, and being fully aware of the only person who’d come knocking at her door at 8:45am on a Thursday morning, Haley called, “It’s open! You can come in, Chris!”

The door swung open with all the force of a blizzard --- and all the hallmarks of one, too: The bitter wind gushed over the threshold as if into the lungs of a drowning man. Flurries of ice accompanied the gust, sparkling the carpet with shining crystals. The bright white light of sun reflecting off banks of snow outside backlit Chris Cooper’s admittedly impressive silhouette with such starkness he might have been a blackboard cutout of himself.

Haley flung one arm up to shield her face from the icy breath of Old Man Winter himself. “Chris!” she cried indignantly. “Use some of that super strength of yours and SHUT THAT DOOR, WILL YOU?!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Chris’ voice rang through the wintry blast. His dark shape came further inside and he turned to shut the door tight against the harsh tundra that had overtaken the city of Corvallis.

Chris’ form resolved in the warm light of the apartment, revealing his expression of exasperation. “And sorry I’m so late. I’ve been flying all over town digging cars out of ditches. I can’t believe how many people don’t know how to drive safely in snow in this town!” His grim, frustrated expression seemed to add to the relative darkness of the room compared to the brightness outside. He flopped down onto the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest.

Still seated comfortably on the armchair, Haley shrugged at him. “Well, no one here is used to this kind of weather. What can ya do?” she said pleasantly.

Chris looked up at her, surprised at her unusual display of cheerfulness, and then looked closer. Confusion and amusement crept into his features. “Uh, Haley?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you . . . Are you wearing a Snuggie?” He barely tried to stifle his laugh.

Rolling her eyes, Haley replied, “Yeah. And?”

A full grin lit Chris’ face now. “And . . . it’s a Snuggie! It’s the most ridiculous piece of as-seen-on-TV crap ever made!”

Haley laid her book aside. “Hey. It’s warm. And it’s not the most ridiculous piece of crap. Have you ever heard of the Forever Lazy?”

Chris shook his head, laughing.

“Well . . . let’s just say that sometimes I study late at night with the TV on, and infomercials are extremely convincing at 3 in the morning. Anyway, wearing a Snuggie and reading a good book that has nothing to do with school is how I do my snow day. And you’re one to talk. Who wears shorts and a t-shirt in a snowstorm?”

“Oh!” Chris looked down as though he’d forgotten what he was wearing. His orange basketball shorts and sneakers with long socks left a lot of mocha-colored skin exposed to the elements. At least he wore a long-sleeved thermal under his OSU Football t-shirt. “It’s called invulnerability. And it sure came in handy when I was peeling cars apart.”

Not wasting a second, Haley said, “You know what would really come in handy? A classic superhero costume!” She held up her thumbs and pointer fingers to frame him in the air. For a moment, she envisioned him flying through the snow-filled air wearing an orange and red jumpsuit with a blue cape and mask. Even though she’d never admit it to anyone --- even anyone in the infinitesimal circle of people with whom she could actually talk about Chris --- she’d already been working on designs for his costume for weeks.

Chris stood up, all seriousness returned to him. “No, Haley. We’ve talked about this,” he said, his voice full of the gravitas he used when telling criminals to put their weapons down or else. “I am not wearing a cape and tights.”

Haley wasn’t concerned about Chris’ continued refusals. She flicked one hand in the air and said, “Fine, whatever. No cape. Just think about it sometime.”

He laughed a humorless laugh. He meant to imply that he would never consider it. Haley knew better. “Yeah, sure. Now are you ready to go to class or what?”

Reminded of the storm outside, Haley stood up and started to peel off the fleecy comfort of the Snuggie. “Almost. Just let me bundle up a bit. For those of us without superpowers, it’s like freaking Hoth out there. I’m gonna need the cotton equivalent of a Tauntaun before I go outside.”

Chris’ next laugh was genuine. “Wow, you just don’t even care how nerdy you look today, do you?”

Haley flashed him a wry grin as she rolled up the Snuggie and threw it behind the couch. “Please. Nerdy is my middle name.”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Corvallis had turned into a legitimate winter wonderland. Snowflakes the size of nickels and quarters swirled through the air. Every surface had been dusted with them: every tree, every building, every unlucky car parked in an exposed lot. This early in the morning, the whiteness of it all still shimmered mostly untouched across the Oregon State University campus, save for the tire tracks in the streets and the main arterial sidewalks that took students to and from their morning classes. The frozen dusting lent a timelessness to the school by gilding brick buildings with powdered-sugar frosting, making the myriad coniferous trees foretell of the ever-nearing Christmas break, and forcing students to hide their electronics in the dark reaches of their backpacks and brave the weather undistracted.

Chris and Haley trudged through the snow toward the heart of campus. Haley’s rain boots crunched easily through the ice up Jefferson Street, but the waterproofing didn’t keep her toes as warm as she had hoped. “Ok-kay,” she stuttered at last through the whistling wind, “I was j-just kidding earlier, but it s-seriously is H-Hoth out h-here!”

Chris, completely unfazed by the cold despite the fact that his clothes and shoes were getting wetter and icier by the minute, looked over at Haley through the continued flurries. “Are you going to be okay? Didn’t you put on enough layers?”

Haley laughed. “Dude, you saw me put on t-two jackets, three s-sweaters, and some particularly unflattering long underw-wear. If I put on any more clothes, I’m n-not going to be able to move!”

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Chris said, looking around. Besides a lone freshman trying in vain to ride his bicycle through the snow, there wasn’t a soul in sight. “Don’t you think OSU would have cancelled class by now?”

Shaking her head, Haley said, “They hadn’t cancelled it when I checked at eight.”

“Do you have your phone? Maybe we could check again.”

“Yeah, it’s in my pocket.”

“Which pocket?”

With her double-gloved hands, Haley felt inside the pockets of her overcoat, patted around the pockets of her other jackets, and then moved around her belt. “Uh . . . The pocket of my long johns.”

Half exasperated and half amused again, Chris cried, “Haley!” The sound echoed around the street between the deserted library and the deeply frozen student media building. Snell Hall’s teal exterior panels made it look at home in the ice.

“Yeah. Apparently that wasn’t as bright an idea as I thought it was.” Haley shoved her hands back into her exterior pockets. There was no way she was reaching into her pants before she got back inside.

Chris looked around. “Hey, there’s Kara’s dorm. Let’s just go in and ask her if she knows.”

Even the heartily unappealing idea of asking Kara for help seemed less unbearable in the midst of the storm. “Yeah, okay. Anything to get out of class.”

As they passed the fenced-in construction area at the very center of campus, they saw that even the Memorial Union crane that towered high above the university was taking the day off; its unyielding steel beams stood still enough to catch every inch of snow as it fell from the sky. The waves of milky flakes were coming down thicker and faster than ever before. The wind was even starting to pull a strange keening noise through the trees . . .

“Do you hear that?” Chris asked suddenly.

They both looked around. Haley squinted through the continuing sheets of snowflakes pelting them. “I can’t see anything ---” she started to say.

“WATCH OUT!”

Chris lifted Haley and yanked her out of the way just in time. A colorfully-clothed college student barrelled down the hill and crossed the path directly in front of them. In a rush of neon colors and snowy jet trails, the blur zoomed across the street and sunk head first into a bank of snow at the base of the nearest building. The flump of down jacket on powder was more muffled than the crash Haley expected from a body hitting the ground at such speed.

Chris and Haley rushed forward, following the clear trail in the snow made by the plastic, circular sled that had lost its way a few yards from where its owner now sat with her fluorescent-green butt in the air, the rest of her body still buried in snow.

“Hello? Are you hurt?” Chris asked the behind. The girl still hadn’t moved.

“Should I call 9-1-1?” Haley asked, reaching unhesitatingly for the phone still stowed in her inside pocket.

“That was AWESOME!”

With a sudden burst of movement, Kara’s familiar face burst from the snow. She hurriedly pushed herself off the ground and stood up, causing Chris and Haley to back up in surprise. Brushing the remaining snow and some twigs from her similarly neon beanie, Kara recognized her friends. “Chris! Haley! Hi! I didn’t see you two there!”

“You just about ran us over, Kara!” Chris cried. With his hands on his hips and a stern expression on his face, Haley thought he looked uncannily like a very strict calculus professor she’d had freshman year. “That was very dangerous!”

“Oh, lighten up, Chris!” Kara waved away his concern like it was a mildly annoying housefly buzzing around her face. “My roommate and I are playing a game we just invented called Snow Zombie Penguin Slide. Do you guys want to join us?” she asked, her excitement fully restored.

Chris’ mood was still that of the safety-minded professor. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you willingly freezing half to death.”

Haley rolled her eyes. The charm of seeing Chris outside of his usual optimism was wearing off. Was this what it was like to hang around with her when it wasn’t a snow day? She made a mental note to try harder when the weather returned to its wet, dreary and monotonous self.

Kara seemed to ignore Chris’ negativity even more than his sarcastic statement suggested. “Come on, it’s really fun! You just have to sled down this hill while avoiding the snow-zombie zones, which are pretty much any non-sled-worthy areas, but you have to do it without getting hit by a snow-brain thrown by the other players, or you have to do it all again penguin-style. If you hit a street sign, you have 15 seconds to make a snow angel zombie in three places or you’ll be sent to the snow dugout. There, you have to wait your turn out, but then you get to be the snow-brain thrower and ---”

Chris cut her off. “Kara, thanks for the tutorial, but I don’t think we’re going to stay out here and ---”

“Sounds like fun!” Haley said, smiling. “What are you using as a base?”

Both Chris and Kara looked at Haley with surprise --- although Chris appeared more disgusted than excited. “You actually want to play?”

“You bet!” Haley exclaimed. “I’m all bundled up and everything! I love the snow!”

With disbelief, Chris and Kara asked, “Really?”

“Sure!” Their surprise cemented her resolution to be more positive in the future. “Look, I grew up in San Francisco, right? Snow for a Californian kid is basically angel dust from heaven, granting the wishes of children everywhere to close school indefinitely. And after you play outside long enough to stop feeling your toes, you go inside and cuddle on the couch with a steaming bowl of sticky rice and sweet and sour pork to watch Christmas movies with Aunt Grace and Uncle Ace.” Haley could almost smell the Chinese food through the years that separated her from these most precious memories. “This is basically the holy grail of all weather phenomena.”

“That sounds fantastic!” Kara was grinning from ear to ear.

Chris merely shook his head. “I can’t believe you have such a soft spot for snow.”

“I can’t believe you don’t,” Haley replied.

That grim look that marred Chris’ face back in Haley’s apartment returned. It was so dark, and so very unlike him. “Well, I did --- before I’d spend every snow day helping road crews with weather-related emergencies. Now, snow just reminds me of stupid drivers who think their destinations are more important than their safety, all the people I can’t save, and more work than I can handle.”

The chill in the air hardened. The trio stood in silence for a beat.

Gently, Kara reached a hand out to Chris’ shoulder and said, “Well, why don’t you take a break from all that superhero-ing and let us fix that attitude for you? The authorities can handle this on their own for a little while.”

Looking back at Haley, Chris asked, “But what about class?”

Haley shook her head. “Come on. Only a conference room full of complete academic morons would make college students go to school in this weather, even if it’s dead week. Let’s have some fun in the snow for once!”

The darkness started to fade from Chris’ face. With the smallest smile, he said, “I’d really like that. But I think you’re going to have to explain the rules again, Kara,” he added, turning back to the girl in the blindingly orange jacket.

“No time!” she cried, scooping up her circle sled and running up the hill, slipping the whole way on vivid purple boots. “Grab something to slide on and let’s go!”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

An hour later, Haley, Chris, Kara, and a tawny-haired girl named Autumn stood together on the top of a battle-scarred hill. Chris was holding the circular sled while the girls gathered around to give him a pep talk for the final run of the game.

“Okay, Chris, this is it,” Kara said, putting one green-gloved hand on his shoulder conspirationally. “If you want to win the Zombie Crown Prize, all you have to do is sled down this mountain, through those gates, and hit that stop sign without getting hit by a brain-snowball. Are you feeling it?” she finished, grinning.

“Oh, I’m feeling it, all right,” Chris said, bouncing on the balls of his feet, all remaining melancholy gone from his face. “I’m feeling it all over!”

The girls exchanged significant glances behind him. “Uh, Chris? . . .” Haley started.

Chris shook his head. “Sorry, I hear it. Never saying it again.” He put the sled on the ground and aimed it down the slope.

“Zombies to your stations!” Kara shouted. Haley ran over to the right sidewalk as quickly as she could without slipping too much on the compacted snow. Autumn tottered over to a snow pile near the bushes. Wearing a snow jumpsuit with matching boots and gloves, she looked like an oversized blue penguin power-walking over a slippery glacier. Both girls grabbed a snowball as Kara took her position near the bottom of the hill. “Ready! Aim! SLED!”

Chris pushed off from the starting line and started his descent. Helped along by a little superstrength, Haley supposed, he slid too quickly through the crossfire for any of them to hit, zig-zagging around obstacles, laughing like a maniac.

Autumn got smart and aimed a snowball ahead of where Chris was sledding to preempt his arrival --- and it worked. The ball exploded in his face in a whirl of sparkling gritty powder, obscuring his vision. Blinded, he reached up and tried to rub the snow from his eyes ---

The combination of jerking around and the few seconds of flying blind turned the sled in a very wrong direction. He jumped the curb and careened toward the construction zone.

“Chris! CHRIS!” Haley shouted, dropping her next projectile and slipping down the hill. “LOOK OUT!”

It was too late to correct his path. Chris barreled headfirst through the chain-link fence, sending wires twanging through the air, and zoomed directly for the base of the enormous crane that stood as a quiet, snow-covered sentinel over the Memorial Union.

As the girls hurried as best they could toward the hole in the fence, they heard the incredible commotion that meant Chris had made contact with the construction area. Great bangs and enormous metallic screeches made known to them what they couldn’t see --- Chris ping-ponging around like a pinball in a machine made of girders and Cats.

Haley’s attention was drawn upward --- and she froze, genuinely terrified, a few feet from the warped and twisted chainlink.

The crane, which to OSU students had become a symbol of the constancy, stability and mythical longevity of the continued construction on campus, now tilted and swayed like a drunk sorority girl at a pre-game party.

Haley had never stopped to consider just how big the crane actually was. It must have been a hundred feet tall or more, and similarly wide at the mast to counteract the weight of the various elements of the new building, which had just recently begun to sprout behind the fence. There was definitely no space large enough in a dozen miles for it to fall anywhere without hitting something --- or someone.

And it was definitely going to hit the three girls on the ground like they were ants at a picnic.

Haley, who had been the first to approach the fence, flung out an arm and turned, shouting with all the power gained by her years of training in marching band, “RUN!”

Kara and Autumn were feet from Haley when they heard her cry and hadn’t seen the crane gaining critical momentum above them. They stopped, but looked at her in confusion instead of heeding her advice. Survival instincts kicking in, Haley rushed toward them and pushed them around, now crying, “GO! GO! GO!”

Just as the two freshmen were finally beginning to understand the urgency of the situation, Haley looked back and heard a familiar low boom. Chris had finally extricated himself from the mess of the construction site and had taken flight to wrestle with the careening crane. Knowing that he would need as much room as possible to operate, Haley instead leapt forward and tackled both girls to the ground --- staying still would be crucial to help in Chris’ rescue operation.

As the three women squirmed in a heap of down jackets and flannel sweatpants, Chris soared up toward the falling crane and grabbed the biggest support he could find --- the mast just below the operator’s cab. With all the strength he could muster in such little time, he pushed up toward the sky to diminish the crane’s gargantuan weight.

The enormous steel structure slowed, but its gravitational pull had become an irresistible force. Chris was as insignificant as a fly against the belly of this cold metal hydra --- but, like on his out-of-control sled, as long as he could see, he could at least steer the thing to a better landing site.

With the slow and careful maneuvering of a comparative dragonfly, Chris and the crane descended at a rate much slower than the usual pull of gravity would have demanded, slowing even more as they approached the snow-covered ground. Chris pulled the crane slightly more southward so that it angled across the fence and then up the hill. The counterweight hit the ground first, slamming out a force like an earthquake on the concrete near the traffic signal at the end of the street. Chris’ feet met the ground a few dozen feet north of the intersection, with the apex of the crane angling down a side street. The jib, which made up most of the crane’s width, continued up the street, fitting just narrowly into the space between the Memorial Union and Langley Hall.

After the ground stopped humming with the reverberations of the crane’s landing, the three girls felt it safe to looked up. They were huddled between the apex and the fore pendant of the crane. To Haley, even though she knew that Chris had purposely steered the crane to protect them, she thought their hiding space in the middle of the street looked more like something out of a cartoon where a building’s four walls come apart at the seams and yet the main character is left standing, completely harmless, in the space where the door should have been.

Chris, having jumped out from under the weight of the crane just before it tried to squash him, made his way over to his friends through the new patterns of snow created by the accident. “Is everyone okay?”

Voice shaking uncontrollably, Haley stammered, “Wh-what the damn h-hell were y-you think-king?”

“I can fix it!” Chris responded apologetically, as though he had broken his mother’s favorite vase and was already running for the Elmer’s glue.

Kara, not quite as shaken up as Haley but incredulous nonetheless, said, “It’s a crane, Chris! How exactly are you going to fix it?”

“Um . . .” Chris stalled, looking around at the disaster area. If there had been anyone left on campus, there would have been a major traffic jam; the crane took up the whole block. The chainlink fence Chris had punched a hole through was now severely bent in the middle where the crane’s mast had been lain across it --- the man-sized hole was no longer their biggest problem. “We need an engineering major, a big screwdriver, a blowtorch, and a lot of scrap metal.”

Chris looked back at his companions. Haley and Kara looked at each other in dubious silence, trying to decide how best to derail Chris’ vain attempt at cleaning up his mess.

Autumn had finally gotten to her feet, having been delayed by the puffiness of her snow suit. “Well, you heard the man!” she said, breaking the icy quiet. “Let’s split up and meet back here in an hour.” Now everyone was looking at Autumn, an odd sight in her blue penguin getup, streaming auburn hair, and determined expression.

Haley and Kara shrugged at each other. “Might as well give it a shot,” Haley reasoned.

“Come on, then!” Autumn cried, brown eyes sparkling. “Go go gadget teamwork!”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Chris trudged across campus, his sour mood having returned in full force and the ice covering his clothes now starting to get to him. Shivering slightly, he turned inward, chastising himself for being so reckless. What the damn hell was he thinking? He should have known better than to play that stupid game. There was no way it could have ended well once he added his strength to his trophy-winning equation.

How much damage had he caused, anyway? Miraculously, there had been no damage to any of the surrounding buildings, but he had definitely totaled a backhoe loader or two, and he didn’t even want to think about how much that crane cost the university. They must have insurance on all that equipment, right? Could they possibly pretend that all that damage had been caused by the heavy weight of the snow, or a stormy gust of wind?

Yeah. Snow days never worked out well for Chris Cooper.

As he made his way across the library quad, he found that a few more people had braved the frigid conditions to explore the campus. There were still a good two hours before sunset, but the sky seemed dark in comparison to the purity of the accumulations that turned the normally green fields white. A lone snowman marked the entrance to the street that led to Campus Way, composed of the powder that had gathered around Benton Hall. The snowman had an orange kazoo for a nose.

Chris was unfamiliar with the engineering department, but he knew some of his friends complained about how much time they spent in Owen and Kearney Halls, so Chris made for the closest of the two and entered. He glanced at a directory and headed upstairs.

It seemed even more deserted in here than it had outside. The building might have been abandoned in anticipation of an air raid --- computers still hummed behind glass windows in laboratories, their screensavers all slightly out of sync with one another. Chris walked down a corridor with no exterior windows and could almost imagine for a moment that there was no storm outside, that he was merely the last student to leave at 5:00 on Friday of finals week.

He wandered around the second floor, then went up to the third floor, and by the time he had circled the whole building, he was frustrated enough to scream. “Isn’t there anybody here?” he cried to the empty hallway, his voice echoing toward the emergency stairs at the end of the wing.

“I am here.”

Chris whirled around. He hadn’t seen anyone who might have signaled their presence; was this the voice of God?

A man with wiry salt-and-pepper hair in a brown tweed suit emerged from a short side hall Chris had passed. He adjusted the round spectacles on his face and smiled at Chris benignly. “Can I help you, young man?”

Relieved but not entirely satisfied, Chris replied, “I really hope so, sir.”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Haley turned to park her purple Jetta in the driveway of the only person she knew would be working without fail on a snowy Thursday in mid-December: Ace Parker.

She was not disappointed.

Uncle Ace had already cleared the driveway, the sidewalk outside the house, and the front porch. The Christmas lights he had hung the week before twinkled on the gutter; they had almost been hidden by the snowdrifts there, but instead of obscuring their light it made them sparkle with a hint of magic. Ace himself now stood in front of the two-car garage, scattering de-icing salt on the cement. Haley waved through her windshield, and he waved back as she killed the engine.

“Nice job on the house, Uncle Ace,” Haley said, tossing the driver’s door shut with a snap. “All you need is a white picket fence and you could sell pictures of it as Christmas cards!”

“Don’t even give me the idea,” Ace replied with a groan, zipping the bag of salt shut and hoisting it higher in his arms. “I’m already crazy enough with all this time off.”

Haley grinned. “Well, that’s what you get when you have the immune system of an elephant.” She took the bag from Ace and they walked together toward the backyard.

Ace snorted derisively. “Damn paid sick leave. If you’re not sick, you shouldn’t have to take time off work. If they’d just pay me instead of forcing me to stay home . . .  So, what’s this about you needing scrap metal? What exactly are you doing at that school, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s no big deal,” Haley said confidently, having worked carefully on her lie as she drove over to her uncle’s house. “Jamie from marching band --- she plays trombone, remember? --- wants to do this big metal sculpture thing for her art final.”

As their boots crunched in rhythm across the path to the shed in the backyard, Ace snorted again. “Of course she does. Isn’t she the one who made that mural-sized painting of her boyfriend’s deal a few terms back?”

Haley rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t his deal . . . allegedly. It was his essence.”

“Yeah, well, they called it something different in my day,” Ace growled. “But if it’s to help your friend with her education, I’ll do what I can. Just make sure she thanks me when she makes it big someday.”

Laughing, Haley replied, “Sure thing, Ace.”

He dialed in the code on the padlock and they opened the doors together.

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

“Thanks for the hot chocolate, Dr. Wu,” Chris said, wrapping the fingers of both hands around the mug.

“You are welcome, young man,” he replied, putting the now half-empty pot back on the base of his coffee maker. “Though next time it snows, I recommend simply wearing more appropriate clothing.”

Chris grinned sheepishly. “I, uh, I’m used to the cold. I just didn’t realize I’d be playing in it for so long.”

Dr. Wu sat down in the black leather chair behind the desk and put the tips of his fingers together. The look he gave him across the corner office gave Chris the impression that he wasn’t entirely convinced somehow. “I too am used to the cold. I grew up in the Midwest. This weather reminds me of my hometown. But I am not such a man who, in light of this nostalgia, forgets to prepare himself for the possibilities.”

Chris nodded. He wasn’t being grilled; he was just being reminded to act like an adult. “Good point.”

“Now, what is it that brings you inside on such a glorious day, besides your search for a warm respite?” Dr. Wu asked, a new, pleasantly curious smile on his lined face.

Chris cleared his throat. He hadn’t been looking for a professor when he’d entered Owen Hall; rather, he was hoping to locate a knowledgeable student or at least a graduate assistant --- someone who wouldn’t have to turn him in or question him too thoroughly when they found out about the mess on Jefferson Street. “I was just --- uh --- looking for someone to --- to interview.”

“Interview?” Dr. Wu’s curiosity intensified; he leaned forward across his impeccably tidy desk.

“Yeah --- I mean, yes,” Chris corrected himself. This seemed like a good lie. He hated lying, but he wanted a chance to clean up his own problems before he got in even more serious trouble than he already was. And flattering someone into talking about themselves was by far the best way to avoid being questioned. “I’m taking a communications class, and we have to interview someone outside our major for the final tomorrow.”

“And yet you failed to complete this assignment before the last week of classes?” Dr. Wu was scrupulous. Chris usually felt somewhat on edge whenever talking to his professors one-on-one, but Dr. Wu was starting to make him feel positively anxious. “Of course, this comes from the bold warrior who refuses to acknowledge the bite of the wind on his kneecaps. Why do you wish to interview someone in the engineering department?”

He shrugged, praying that Dr. Wu would let him ask the questions soon; the credibility of his lie relied on it. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he stalled. “I’m a liberal arts major right now. Engineering seems like the complete opposite of that. I figured I could come up with a lot of questions about it.”

Dr. Wu leaned back, adjusting his circular glasses again. “Very well. I will assist you with this assignment. Are you prepared to take notes?”

Chris was sure that behind the white reflection on his eyes that Dr. Wu was trying to suppress a teasing smile. Unprepared for this question, but feeling slightly more comfortable for the rapport they had now established, Chris blurted out, “We’re not supposed to take notes.”

“An oral assignment. Very good,” Dr. Wu nodded. He was definitely playing along now, but that was okay with Chris. “What questions do you have?”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Autumn walked into the bike shop and paused on the mat to stomp the snow off her boots. Tossing her hood back, she freed her long, wavy hair and assessed the state of the room. Like everywhere else in the snow-blanketed Willamette Valley, it was almost deserted at first glance. There were no grad students hurrying past the floor-to-ceiling windows outside laden with dull leather-bound books, nor were any improperly-dressed sophomore girls in yoga pants and Uggs standing by as their Nike-wearing male counterparts refilled the tires on their beach cruisers.

However, there were four people working behind the counter in the other room. Autumn remembered the last time she’d come in Dixon Hall this way, when her aging chain had rusted so tightly she couldn’t turn the wheels anymore. All she’d wanted was some WD-40 so she could get to class in time for a test, but the student workers at that time were too busy doing homework to help her. Autumn had left, unsatisfied and somewhat ashamed of her reticence, twenty minutes later.

She hoped things would be different this time. Even though she would rather go anywhere else, this seemed to be the nearest place with anything useful in stock. Three young staff members huddled together in one corner, not looking helpful helpful at all, but the wavy-haired twenty-year-old with the dimples sitting at the computer looked friendly. She approached cautiously.

“Hi there!” he chimed, smiling widely enough to carve craters in his face. “How can I help you?”

A small simper twitched into place on Autumn’s face. “Hello,” she said as confidently as she could. “I’d like to borrow a really big standard head screwdriver.”

“Oh-kay,” the boy trailed off, typing something into the computer. “What size is really big?”

“Big enough for the biggest screw you can find,” Autumn replied. And then pulled a pained face.

The boys in the corner snickered loudly. “That’s what she said!” one of them said in a stage whisper that nonetheless carried across the small room, to the renewed laughter of the other two.

The wavy-haired boy with the name tag that read ‘Steven’ glanced sideways at them in aggravation and then looked back at the computer. “Okay, I’ve got a two-inch standard screwdriver here I can lend you. But unfortunately you can’t take it out of the shop,” he added, looking up at Autumn with his head tilted slightly to the side. “Can you bring whatever you need it for inside?”

Autumn’s face fell. “No, I, uh --- I don’t think it will fit through the door.”

Steven seemed to share her disappointment. “I’m sorry. Is there anything else I can help you with? I could --- uh . . .” His expression shifted to a bashful half-smile, which somehow made his dimples even more adorable. “I could give you my number so you can call me later. I’ve got a garage full of old tools my grandpa gave to me when he passed. I’m sure I could find something useful.”

The snickering in the corner subsided. Autumn had the awkward impression that the three nitwits were listening intently. “Sure, that sounds great.” She smiled a little wider. “I’m Autumn, by the way.”

“Steven,” he blurted, pointing at his name tag. He grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper from beside the computer monitor on the desk and scribbled down his name and number as fast as he could. As he handed over the neon orange square, he added, “I get off at 5.”

Feeling a lot more confident despite her failure, Autumn took the paper and grinned before walking back toward the exit. Just before she pushed her way outside, she turned back to the boys in the corner and waved Steven’s note at them, saying, “Make a note, losers. That’s how you get numbers. Not by making sexual jokes at a girl’s expense. Maybe you should try it someday --- when you’re done with puberty.”

All three of their jaws dropped comically. Steven burst out a long, rolling belly laugh. Autumn smirked once more and flipped her long hair as she bounced back into the cold.

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Chris opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He glanced out the window at the snowy street below. His own curiosity piqued, he asked, “What are you doing here today?”

The corners of Dr. Wu’s polite smile twitched. “An unusual opening question, but we have already established that you are very unoriginal, correct? I am here because I have work to do.”

“So does everyone else,” Chris said without reservation, “but you don’t see them coming in on a snow day.” Haley would be proud of how poorly he was holding back. He, however, felt almost dirty, but then again he was too emotionally drained to care.

Dr. Wu considered this a moment. “As I said earlier, I am well used to maneuvering in difficult weather --- although to be honest, this is not what I would call difficult.” He shrugged. This was an oddly childish juxtaposition against Dr. Wu’s formal, properly adult manner. “It did not seem like any trouble to come in, and I love my work. I come in every day to check on various projects and classes.”

“Every day?” Chris asked, incredulous. “Don’t you get --- you know, tired of it all?”

Dr. Wu smiled again, but this time with an air of understanding more than he let on. “It is all a matter of balance,” he replied. “I am an old man now, and I have learned much in my time on this world about what matters --- and what does not.” He inclined his head so he could peer over the rim of his glasses. Chris was reminded forcefully of Dumbledore, and almost rolled his eyes at himself for thinking of such a Haley-esque reference. “It is difficult to be young and inexperienced in life. You swing hard one way only to find that you are too far from yourself, and then you overcorrect the other direction. The way forward contains an impossibly infinite array of paths. You hardly know what your dreams are, much less how to achieve them, and are blinded by panic thinking you must make all your choices now despite being without the proper knowledge to make an informed decision.”

His words cut right to Chris’ heart. That was exactly how he felt lately. “So how do you even figure out what balance is?”

The man raised his eyebrows. “You may think this sounds cliche, but it is the truth: You make your mistakes, and then you learn from them, use that knowledge to inform your future decisions, and move forward.”

Chris heaved a heavy sigh and sank a little lower in his chair. “That does sound cliche.” He looked down into the dregs of his hot chocolate. “Does it get any easier?”

“Life is full of tension and release,” said Dr. Wu, folding his hands and laying them on the desk. “You will find that with experience you are better able to determine when it is best to work or to unwind. However, you may not be able to act on that knowledge.”

Chris looked up again. “Are you saying you have to work today?”

Dr. Wu laughed pleasantly. “You are beginning to see through the veil of ambiguosity! Good work!” He shook his head. “I do not have to work today. I chose to work today so that I may relax in the knowledge that I have accomplished what I set out to do.”

“And if you can’t take a break? What then?” Chris asked, thinking bitterly about all the things he had been avoiding while playing Snow Zombie Penguin Slide.

There was a small pause in which Chris’ plea sat heavily in the room, the myriad unspoken struggles hovering in the air like icy precipitation.

“It differs for all of us, I think,” Dr. Wu said softly. “Personally, I choose to take at least one moment to breathe, to pray, and to remind myself that we must never tire of doing good. Suffering produces endurance, perseverance produces character, and character ---”

“And character produces hope,” Chris finished, looking at Dr. Wu with new eyes.

Dr. Wu nodded, his eyes twinkling. “Exactly.”

Chris sat in silence again, turning Dr. Wu’s words over in his mind. It was absolutely true that helping snow-clogged idiots escape from their busted vehicles was a good work. All of Chris’ superheroics were for good. But somehow the word work had grown bigger than the word good in his mind, and it had taken on a negative connotation that polluted his thoughts --- so much so that Haley’s marginally more cheerful attitude seemed absolutely bubbly in comparison to his own.

Dr. Wu broke the silence before Chris had time to think of a response. “I don’t doubt that you have more work to do out there, young man. I shall keep you from it no longer. Please leave your mug by the door on your way out.” He smiled at Chris again.

Chris, startled at the dismissal, stood awkwardly and hesitated in making for the exit. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Wu. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“And you, Mr. Cooper,” Dr. Wu replied, turning back toward his computer. “Stop by any time you desire more sage, inscrutable wisdom.”

“Or chocolate!” Chris added, holding up his cup. He grinned to cover up his discomfort --- should he have quipped like that?

With a full grin, Dr. Wu laughed, “Indeed!”

~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Despite the twilight glow that still penetrated the low-hanging clouds, the streetlights had started to blink on, turning the snow orange as the four companions reunited across the quad from the library. The kazoo-nosed snowman looked on, the only witness to their meeting.

“So I take it you didn’t find an engineering student?” Haley asked Chris, who shook his head.

“Just a professor,” he responded. “And I don’t think he’d be able to help us without having to turn us in.”

“Okay. Well, how about the screwdriver? Autumn? Did you have any success?” Haley asked, turning to their penguin-suited group member.

“Nope,” Autumn shook her head. “Unless we go out to Home Depot, I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful before dark.”

Haley scoffed and put her hands on her hips impatiently. “Kara? Please tell me you’ve got something.”

“Sorry, Haley, I tried,” Kara said apologetically. “I went to my cousin’s custom auto shop, but he said I couldn’t be trusted with a blowtorch, and then he wouldn’t even tell me where to find one on my own.”

Chris and Autumn laughed. “He had a point, I guess,” Haley admitted. “I don’t know what madness drove us to give you that to do.”

A gust of wind blew over them. The snow had stopped, but the chill that was falling in tandem with the darkness promised to keep the ice well frozen through the night.

Haley shivered and shoved her mittens deeper into the pockets of her jacket. “Well, without the other stuff, all that scrap metal in my trunk is pretty much useless.”

“Of course you’re the only one who managed to get what you were looking for,” Kara said, folding her arms and rolling her eyes at Haley.

“We should still go see what we can do,” Chris reasoned. Haley glanced over at him. Even though his voice was heavy with disappointment, he seemed lighter than he had been when he’d left.

The rest nodded gloomily. They turned as one and began to crunch through the hardening snow toward the scene of the destruction. “Maybe they won’t make you pay for the damage,” Kara said hopefully to Chris. “Maybe they won’t think one kid on a sled could do all that by himself.”

Chris laughed, but it was clear he wasn’t amused. “Yeah, and maybe Santa Claus is going to bring me a million-dollar football contract for Christmas. Thanks for trying, though, Kara,” he added appreciatively.

As the four rounded the java shop and turned onto Jefferson Street, they stopped and looked around through the orange-sparkled obscurity. “Where’d it go?”

The street was clear. The late-falling snow had dusted over the street again, turning all the surfaces smooth and pillowy again. There was no sign anywhere of the steel beams of the crane, nor did any footprints or crane-prints show where it had been the last time they had stood there.

“Uh . . .” Haley stammered, blinking as if to clear away the vision of an empty street.

“Could someone have moved it?” Kara asked, the vein of doubt clear in her voice.

“Nuh-uh,” Autumn responded, now walking slowly into the street, looking for signs in the powder under her feet. “No one can move something that big that quickly.”

Kara and Haley looked over at Chris, who was walking slowly toward the construction zone. “Yeah, no one could do that. Could they, Chris?” Kara asked.

He didn’t respond.

The rest of the group followed Chris up the hill. They marched through the remains of their zombie playground. The shapes of their battlements had been obscured slightly, but they still remained, hidden under another layer of snow. At the top of the hill, they looked in at the construction zone through an unbroken line of chainlink fencing. It seemed as if nothing had been touched since 8:00am that morning --- the dusting on all the equipment and materials was consistent with the powder on the ground.

They gathered at the fence and looked up into the continually darkening sky. There, towering above the campus, unbroken and unmoving, stood the Memorial Union crane, stoic and reticent as ever.

“How . . . what . . . ?” Haley tried to voice the question on all their minds in vain. They continued to stare, mesmerized, entranced by the sight guardian of the girders.

“It’s a snow day miracle,” Autumn intoned in a hushed voice.

“It’s a miracle, all right,” Chris agreed, never taking his eyes off the crane.

They waited with the innocent patience of awestruck children, the darkness closing in around them, the amber streetlights thrusting their beams boldly into the murky night. The silence was so solid they might have been standing under a hundred meters of icy water. The presence of the unknown pushed itself upon them like the pressure at the bottom of the sea. Jefferson Street was as familiar to them as anything in this world, but at that moment it was as foreign as a trench at the bottom of the Pacific, a mysterious aquatic landscape that held either nothing or everything.

None of them found their voices again until another breath of wintry air slithered across them, blowing away the vision of the abyss.

“Well,” Kara said hoarsely. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Anyone wanna come back to my dorm and watch Lethal Weapon or something?”

Haley let out a short laugh. “I guess. Unless you guys want to stand here and stare at the crane some more.”

Autumn shook her head, a slightly dazed smile on her face. Chris seemed more inclined to do just that, but at last he tore his eyes away and looked at the women surrounding him.

“Okay then! To the television! Away!” Kara cried into the night, further cementing them in their own reality.

As the group meandered down the other side of the hill toward Sackett Hall, Haley fell back from the others and got into step with Chris. “You didn’t come back and fix it while we were out looking for supplies, did you?”

“No,” Chris said. “I wasn’t kidding around. I don’t know how to fix a crane. I don’t even know if I could lift it back into place by myself.”

“Huh,” Haley huffed. She smiled, mildly impressed, and looked back at Chris. “I guess there are such things as miracles.”

Chris nodded and shook his head. “You’re telling me.”