Glorious, Glistening Snow - by Margarida Brei

https://Voice.club - “After the blizzard, the snow glistened a blazing white as the sun hit it. A glorious sight like dazzling diamonds. It was pristine and fluffy, the whitest of blankets. Untouched, it spread in every direction around me. As though I was the last person on Earth, there was only whiteness and complete silence. Each snowflake reflected the light creating a blinding luminous mass. It was sparkling, serene and special. A true winter wonderland. Glorious, glistening snow!”

After reading this, I closed the book in disgust. The book snapped shut with a vindictive bang. It took all my self-will to stop hurling the book across the room. Hypocrite! What a hypocrite I am; I lacked enough strength in my puny arms to throw anything. The very thought made me laugh hollowly. A huge mistake, because I started coughing and had to use the oxygen mask.

Enough self-pity, I settled down in my sick bed as comfortably as I could on the lumpy bumpy mattress. Repositioning the periscope, I wanted to emphasise my point. Lazily I pondered how long the periscope was, because my room was many floors underground. Looking at the diseased sky, snow thundered down. This snow was the colour and consistency of tar, rotten with a thousand polluted factories. It actually stunk and pitted the ground with horrific holes.

I had an obsession to look at anything of the old beautiful Earth. Spellbound, I stared at photos of pure running rivers, noble trees guarding majestic mountains, skies of the clearest inviting azure. Mesmerised, I watched reels of videos on colour changing seasons, wild animals roaming free and wondrous birds skimming down to shimmering lakes. I read countless descriptions of a once beautiful Earth teaming with life, purity and beauty. Reading of the lovely Earth which existed so long ago was a self-torture. I was addicted to hurting myself, because I lived in a broken ugly overly polluted world.

Glorious glistening snow was a once upon a time. There was no longer a glorious, glistening globe!

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Fantastic story sent in a dystopian future! I love the description of earth as it should be “teeming with life, purity and beauty”. It’s touching and scary at the same time, love it!

Very dystopian Margarida and continues the theme of living below a world destroyed above ground. I think I said once before that it reminds me of the Dust trilogy, This is now part of a series on Apple TV called Silo.

Greene, I really appreciate your commentary. True, there is such a huge contrast between the once beautiful Earth and this dystopian future.

Julian, thanks for reading, commenting and remembering a story I wrote of a broken world having to survive underground. Owing to your former reference to the Wool trilogy by Hugh Howey, I devoured the three books. A disturbing haunting read!

Margarida, thank you for this unforgettable vision. You use the snow, and then all the other beautiful images of nature to such great effect in contrasting the polluted earth of the story’s present. Wonderful!

Regina, thanks for reading and your kind comments. I just wanted to make a shocking dramatic description of the then and dystopian future. The snow proved a great symbol to use!

I want to shed tears for the fate of the earth at our hands. Poor earth in the future. I hope people open their eyes so that this can be prevented in the future.

Lotchie, always a pleasure hearing from you. Many appreciations for reading and commenting. As a species we truly have to wake up to the self-harm we are causing the Earth.
Perhaps in a future story, I will write more optimistically of a healthier Earth!

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