Susie

Susie
Susie’s day starts out with her being sent rapidly through the cold crisp air, going up then dropping suddenly down like an airplane in a nosedive. Her body is compacted into a round little shape, when her four appendages start to spread out into the air as she pinwheels down and down. The wind again comes up from underneath her moving her up to new heights, as the air gets colder. She continues bouncing up and down in the air as gale force winds carry her aloft, only to drop her again like a rock.
This time she continues to fall down toward the earth. The wind comes up underneath holding her, as she seems to float downward as she is knocked back and forth, bouncing off others caught in the same air currents. They are all falling down now at different rates of speed.
Below she sees the shape of things to come. A giant forest with roads and houses built all around it. Down, down, down she goes into the branches of a giant tree directly below her. Only a miracle can keep her from running into the branches. The wind pushes her through the tree as she skims over the bark of a large limb. Out into the air free of the branches she falls again toward the windshield of the car below. No! No! She screams, “Not the windshield”, when a sudden gust of air moves her up again, and out over the vast white fields of snow. Falling again she alights on a large orange shelf sticking out from a huge round ball of snow. Staring at her are two enormous black boulders tucked into the round snowy glacier.
Her stay on the shelf is very brief as she is blown off sending her into the snow bank at the side of the road.
She lies there as the cold envelops her and others pile on top of her. Slowly they merge into one, as her whole body starts to crystallize from the freezing temperatures. Looking up she see the face of the giant snowman staring down at her with his big black eyes of coal and carrot nose. The next day the temperature rises very rapidly causing the snow to melt. Susie feels the warmth surge through her, and she screams, “I am melting”.
Susie snowflake finds she is in a small puddle of water, where eventually she might be drawn down into the earth as food for the large tree she so recently escaped. She imagines herself being drawn into the small roots traveling up into the tree trunk on her way through the branches out to a small bud as it unfolds into the first leaf of spring.
This is not to be, as the small reservoir she is trapped in starts filling very rapidly with the melting snow. A small dam at the end breaks open as the water pours out onto the pavement sending Susie into a dirty mud-filled pothole. She is not there long when a truck with very large wheels comes barreling down the street.
The front tire slams into the pothole sending droplets of water flying out in all directions. Susie now finds she is face down on the asphalt, just another small droplet of water. Lying there on the warm surface as the sun’s radiant heat blasts at her like a furnace she feels her molecules start to stir. Suddenly a thermal air current rising up with the speed of a rocket ship lifts her up. Higher and higher she goes up into the cold atmosphere until she is even above where the airplanes fly high into the clouds.
She feels her molecules start to change into small crystals of ice as she again is formed into a beautiful snowflake riding on the air currents. Here she bumps into more and more of her own kind, yet there are not two that are shaped the same. Each one has its own distinct look and even though there are millions of them there are no two exactly alike. Susie mingles among them where some share a friendly vibe, while others are just “Flakes”.
She rides the jet stream for hours until an Alberta Clipper coming down out of Canada grabs her in its icy grip taking her down around the Great Lakes where it sweeps back up the western edge of Michigan into Canada. She travels north until the Clipper releases its grip sending her floating down toward the earth. This time she lands on a lofty peak of a glacier in Greenland. This majestic beauty of nature with its deep blue ice covered in fresh white snow is the perfect resting place for Susie. She is so happy feeling the comfort of all her friends gathering around her as she settles in for a long stay. The cold artic air will allow her to remain for many years before her slumber is to be disturbed, sending her on yet another adventure.

Robert L. Murdoch

01/15/09