SNOWDOMED
A short story by
John A. Holten
Published by John A. Holten at Smashwords.
Copyright © 2011 by John A. Holten.
"The origin of the snow globe, also known as a snowdome, is unclear," Lila read aloud. "However, they are thought to have originated in France in the early 1800's."
"What's that?" Richard asked, darting a quick glance from behind the wheel.
Lila, in the passenger seat, held up a thin, cheaply bound paperback. A Brief History of the Snowglobe by Tabitha Starling.
"Where did you find that?" Richard said, looking back at the road and tightening his hands on the wheel.
"It was in one of the boxes Tammy left behind."
"I'm surprised she didn't take it with her," he said. "What, Tammy doesn't agree with Tabby?"
"She called Starling a Wikipedian," she replied. "Tammy's writing what she calls 'the real history' herself."
"Her fucking delusions!" He slammed his right hand on the dashboard, hard, over-punctuating his exclamation.
Lila turned away and pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window. The scenery drifted past, bleak if not barren, skeletal tree branches stretching towards the cold winter sky. The radio reception came and went, a constant contrast of music and static. Once, passing through a little village, a preacher's voice cut through, brief but brutal. "You are doomed!" it intoned, startling both of them.
"I'm glad we didn't stop there," Richard said, laughing nervously. "If that's their local station, it's Children of the Corn territory."
Lila thought of the line in the little paperback that said that snow globes were also known as snowdomes. "Tammy wouldn't say we were doomed," she told Richard. "She'd say we were domed. Snowdomed."
"Not funny," he said.
"No," she agreed. "I guess not. But it's what she believes, Richard. That's why we're on this little intervention trip for two, isn't it?"
Richard didn't reply. He just stared at the road ahead, angry and intent. Lila started to wonder again if this trip was such a good idea. But it was too late now. So she forced the thought away, forced all the thoughts away. After awhile, her mind drifted and she dozed. When she woke up, she looked out the window in time to see a sign flick past: WELCOME TO ABEYANCE.
"Almost there," Richard said. "She lives on the outskirts of this little burg, right?"
Lila yawned, rubbed her eyes, and sat up straight. She told him to drive through the little town and take the first left, a dirt track that wound steeply into the woods, tufts of grass growing between tire ruts.
The trail was torturous as it climbed steep bluffs before dropping into dark clefts. They passed through pockets of dark and light, the sun breaking through gaps in the overhead canopy of intertwined tree branches before disappearing again as the gaps closed and the trail led deeper and darker into the woods.
Finally, they emerged into a clearing and onto a grassy knoll. Below the embankment, resting in the flat hollow of a little glade, stood a small stone cottage.
Richard cut the engine and reached for the door handle. Lila grabbed his arm. "Wait," she said. "I know you're going to say it's too late, but I'm starting to wonder if this is a good idea."
"You're right. It is too late." He shrugged away from her, opened his door and got out.
Lila climbed out of the car and stood looking up at the cold blue sky. Richard was starting towards the steps that led down to the cottage. She was tempted to try again to talk him out of this. She could tell him Tammy was eccentric. Sure, she had some crazy ideas, but lots of people did. Tammy wasn't harming anyone, maybe they should just leave her be.
Then she thought back to meeting Richard for coffee last week in the city. He'd point out that it had been her idea in the first place, this intervention. That was true. She didn't know him very well, had reached out to him because he had dated Tammy for so long. Lila hadn't known who else to turn to. Their parents were dead and no one else cared about Tammy. She was worried about Tammy and had told Richard that her sister's snow globe delusions were going too far, cutting her off from reality. Then Tammy had moved out here to the sticks last month, cutting herself off even more, working on her research.
Lila was still worried about her sister, and she knew there was no changing Richard's mind. She sighed. No turning back now. She reluctantly followed him down the steps to the cottage.
They walked to the door together. Lila knocked. No answer. Richard banged his fist against the door. When there was still no answer, Lila bent and fished the spare key out from beneath the welcome mat. She unlocked the door and they stepped inside into an open-plan downstairs, a large living room connected to a kitchen by an archway.
"Christ," Richard muttered. "It's like a fucking snow globe museum."
Lila gasped. "My God."
Tammy had got rid of the all the furniture and had filled the room with display cases. Snow globes weighed them down and every available wall space was taken up by shelf after shelf of them. Stepping through the archway and into the kitchen, more snow globes assaulted their eyes, hundreds of them. The room barely resembled a kitchen anymore. There was counter space, a fridge, but there was no table or chairs and all but one kitchen cabinet had been removed from the wall; in their place, shelves of snow globes jutted from the walls.
"You see now we have a problem, don't you?" Richard said.
Lila didn't know what to say. She just looked around, stunned. She hadn't even realised her sister owned so many snow globes. She'd had hundreds back in the city, had boxed them all up and moved them out here. But now they were looking at thousands of the things, and there were probably more upstairs. She couldn't begin to comprehend how Tammy had got so many more in such a short space of time.
"It's not just this," Richard continued. "You said she's writing a book on what she thinks is the true history of them and ..." He trailed off, looking around in amazement.
"And she thinks we all live in snow globes," Lila croaked, finding her voice and finishing the thought for him.
They stood in silence for a moment. Lila wandered to the nearest display of snow globes. They ranged from little plastic ones to larger ones with heavy bases and leaded glass domes. Some depicted winter scenes of snow-blanketed little villages, others were more touristy – cityscapes featuring prominent landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. One was labelled “Rosebud”; it was a replica of the snow globe from Citizen Kane.
A voice from behind them broke the silence. "Hello," Tammy Westphall said, coming through the archway into the kitchen, a sheaf of pages clutched in one hand. "I was upstairs doing some work," she said. She didn't seem particularly surprised to see them. "I didn't hear you two come in."
Lila stared at her sister. Tammy looked good. Maybe she was losing her grip on reality, but physically she was the picture of health, blonde and beautiful. Lila had always envied Tammy's blonde good looks. The Westphall sisters looked nothing alike. Lila, a tall brunette, had always felt like the proverbial ugly duckling next to her sister.
"We're here to talk to you," Richard said.
"Oh ok," Tammy said, as if there was nothing unusual about their abrupt arrival. "I'm afraid as you see" - she gestured around - "I have no furniture. But we can sit on the floor. I have cushions somewhere. I'll make us tea."
Tammy laid the sheets of paper on the counter and picked up a teakettle from the stove. Lila glanced at the pages. HECTOR ARET (1709-1757) was the heading on the top page. Tammy saw Lila looking. "I think he's the one," Tammy told her. "The one who divined it all. It's taken me a long time to find him."
Richard glanced warily at Tammy then looked at Lila. "What's she talking about?" he whispered.
"Her theory," Lila whispered back.
"That's right," Tammy spoke up. She had filled the teakettle with water and lit a burner on the stove. Now she was taking cups down from the kitchen's lone cabinet. "It's much more than a theory, though," she said. "Are you familiar with my research, Richard? It's been so long since I've seen you, I'm not sure if you know about my work."
"Your work?" Richard said. "Your research?" He laughed, bitterly. "Oh, I'm familiar with the Tammy Theory of the Snow globe, all right. Your sister filled me in. Let me see if I've got it right. Apparently, the origin of them is unknown. So you figured out that some long-ago philosopher or artist designed them not as arts and crafts but as a message to humankind. And the message is that we all live in snow globes. That about it?"
"There's more to it than that," Tammy said. "There are other worlds than this, Richard."
Richard sighed. "What's happened to you, Tammy? Your sister told me how far this had all gone. I didn't fully believe her. But seeing this place, and hearing you talk, and seeing in your eyes that you really believe this shit you're spouting ... it scares me. We're here to talk sense, Tammy. Listen to us."
Tammy and Richard began to argue. She told him he'd always been too angry and Richard told her that he'd always thought her snow globe-collecting had been a harmless hobby. He asked her how obsession had led to possession.
Tammy laughed. "I'm not possessed, Richard."
Lila turned away from them, rubbed at her temples, where a headache was trying to be born. It was going to be a long night. She'd have to try and calm Richard down, then talk slowly and patiently to Tammy.
A sudden loud crash snapped her attention back. She turned around and saw the world's smallest earthquake: little buildings, shattered glass and fake snow bobbing in a puddle of water on the linoleum.
Lila watched as Richard grabbed another snow globe from the nearest shelf. He held it up to Tammy. "They're just ornaments!" he cried. "They're not gateways to other dimensions. And we do not live inside them, you crazy bitch!" He flung the snow globe to the ground.
I knew this was a bad idea, Lila thought. He's too volatile. This intervention was a mistake.
Richard began grabbing snow globes from shelves, flinging them to the ground in small explosions. Then he was charging into the living room like a bull, swiping snow globes from shelves. He even toppled one of the display cases. It exploded and the globes inside it shattered. The sound was deafening.
Tammy looked eerily calm but Lila was terrified. They both watched him through the archway.
After several moments, Richard stopped. He was breathing heavily, his face flushed. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead. He looked around at the chaos he'd caused, blinking in surprise. "I'm sorry," he panted. "I don't know what came over me."
"You shouldn't have done this," Tammy said. "You've made him angry, Richard."
"What are you talking about now? Made who angry?"
Suddenly, the teakettle on the stove began to scream. Hot steam erupted from its spout.
Then the ground began to shake.
What's happening? Lila wasn't sure if she thought the words or said them out loud.
All around them, snow globes and shelves crashed to the ground. In the mayhem, the kettle continued to whistle and shrill.
"We have to get out of here," Richard cried, grabbing Lila by the arm.
Lila let herself be dragged to the front door. She looked back but couldn't see Tammy anywhere. Broken glass crunched beneath their feet, they almost slipped on water, and then there were outside.
The world was spinning. The ground leaped up at them, seemed to cant sideways. They fell to the grass.
As suddenly as the earthquake – because surely that's what it was, it had to be – began, it stopped. Everything was still. Richard sat up, rubbing his head and looking around, dazed.
Lila felt something cold and wet brush her face. She blinked her eyes. It was snowing. Flakes of snow were drifting through the air. They swirled around them, landing on the grass. Lila coughed and spluttered. The air had grown heavy, almost watery.
"I can't ... breathe," Richard gasped, clutching at his throat.
Lila realised she could barely breathe herself. She sucked at the air. She felt like she was drowning. The snow swirled and swirled, distorting her vision.
A loud shattering sound filled the day and large blobs of blue fell around them. It looked like glass. Shards of big, blue glass. She raised her head and squinted through the swirling snow at the sky, seeing a gaping black hole in the expanse of blue.
Chicken Little was right, she thought hysterically. The sky is falling!
When the giant hand came through the hole in the sky, Lila thought she would scream. She could feel insanity inching in at the edges of her mind. She just stared in shock and horror as the gigantic hand – humanoid but ghostly, flickering in the snow - reached down and then massive fingers were closing around Richard.
Is it God's hand? Lila wondered, stupefied. Or some god's hand?
Richard was spluttering and screaming, frantically waving his arms and legs. The hand cupped him as if he were no more than a little doll, which, Lila supposed, was all they were to this hand.
Tammy's Barbie. Richard's Ken. Who am I?
These distorted thoughts jangled like broken glass in her head. She was finding it harder to breathe.
The hand lifted Richard into the sky and Lila fainted.
* * *
When she came to, she was lying on the grass. She must have hit her head after the ... earthquake. She pulled herself to her feet and staggered towards the steps. She saw her sister standing up on the embankment. Lila looked around. No sign of any snow and no black hole in the blue sky.
Thank God, she thought. It was just a dream.
She spotted something on the grass. A pair of man's shoes.
Richard, she thought.
She was reaching to pick up one of the shoes when she saw the foot that protruded from it, a bloody sock, the white of bone where it had been separated at the ankle.
A silent scream locked her throat and she looked up at the sky.
The hole closed before his feet went through.
No, it wasn't possible. It was madness.
Lila's gaze darted from the shoes – feet, blood and bone – to her sister.
Tammy Westphall was standing on the grass, looking up at the sky and ... waving.
Before Lila began to scream, she had a moment to wonder if a giant hand was waving back.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John A. Holten is an author and editor living in Ireland. As a teenager, he wrote two novels - Killing the Shadows and Raining Blood or Scare. Though slightly immature, they displayed a good deal of talent and scope for such a young independent author but he never submitted the novels for publication and forgot about them for almost a decade. When he decided to revisit them a few years later, John made many grammatical and formatting edits (he also recently decided to include some lost chapters in Killing the Shadows and an updated opening to Raining Blood or Scare) but he decided not to make any major story edits as he wanted to preserve the essential tone of his younger voice. Both books are now self-published and available as inexpensive e-books on the Amazon Kindle and the iBookstore, and in print editions from Amazon.com and Lulu.com. Working on these books, John realised how much he loved the process of writing: losing himself in narrative, creating characters, but above all telling a story.
John penned several short stories in the last few years, one of which (Paul and Alex: Two Sides to Every Story) was published in the anthology collection Best Gay Love Stories 2009 by Alyson Publishing, New York. Two of John's recent horror short stories - Carnival Convalescence and Snowdomed - are now available as free/inexpensive e-book exclusives.
John has also served as a contributor and editor on his father, Anthony Holten's, books. These include: Stroke of Luck: One Man's Struggle with Diabetes and the Irish Medical System; Where Toll Roads Meet - Exploring the Road Network Around Tara From Olden Times to the Current M3 Controversy; On Ancient Roads - Recollections, History and Folklore of County Meath; and two other books that are coming soon!
John spent much of his early twenties working in a bookshop, a call center, and a travel agency before returning to university to complete his English degree. He graduated from University College Cork in 2009 with a B.A. in English and Philosophy. Since then, he's been training in proofreading and is also pursuing postgraduate study.
John is currently hard at work on a new novel, AiA. It is the first time he has returned to novel-writing in almost thirteen years, since his aforementioned teenage books. John's new novel – a vastly more mature work than his teenage thrillers - should be published sometime in 2012. Look out for it! He is also planning to release some more short stories on the Amazon Kindle.
John is on Twitter @johnaholten and his website is
http://sites.google.com/site/johnaholtenauthor