SNOWFALL

by Jessie Thompson

The Short, Sad Miracle of Jessie Thompson

Introduction By Harlan Ellison

Ah, yes, he said with a sigh. Tony and Mick’s brainchild; their greatest conception. I have been with F&SF as long as this magazine has been with itself. A sting longer than any of its grand and great editors. I bought the very first issue, in 1949, soon after the death of my father. It was known, for that issue only (if memory serves after only sixty years) as The Magazine of Fantasy. It was a photo cover, and not a terribly prepossessing one, because the great designer George Salter would not take over till issue number 2.

In the sixty years of writing and selling the gold and detritus swishing around in my pan, of the almost 1800 stories, essays, columns, and minutiae that have found a paying home, this periodical has published more than any other single venue. This magazine is as much an icon of my life as, well, Jiminy Cricket. The task of selecting one story from F&SF, from every issue ever published, is a ball-buster; a task assumed not lightly. And yet, as it turns out, less a conundrum than I had imagined when Gordon asked me to contribute such a selection’s Classic Reprint introduction.

Dozens of them began rising like wraiths from my mental porridge. I knew most of the authors well, some were my closest friends; a couple who are gone are still rotting in hell; long ones and short ones and serials ... all of them gently spiraled up from memory, the edges softened, but the joy of their acquaintance still potent. So which one would it be?

Avram’s “Or All the Seas with Oysters” or Ted’s “The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast” or Ward’s “Bring the Jubilee” or...

(Between 24 July 1951 [I had just turned seventeen] and the date he relinquished hands-on editorship of F&SF, Tony Boucher rejected my pathetic attempts at joining the pantheon thirty-two straight times. He told me, years later, that it was the most obstinately endless unbroken string of bounces in his career as an editor. Yet when my freshman short story collection was published in 1958, the first review I received was from Tony in The New York Times Book Review. It was a good review for an awkward first collection.)

...or Dick Matheson’s unforgettable “Born of Man and Woman” or one of Sprague’s and Fletcher Pratt’s Gavagan’s bar comedies, or Howard Schoenfeld’s “Built Up Logically” or Reg Bretnor’s “The Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork Out” or Phil Farmer’s “Father” or Kurt’s “Harrison Bergeron” or...

No. Just calm down, kid. The object of this piece is to introduce something grand and unique, not to recap the moments of brilliance on paper this magazine replicates issue after issue for more than half a century. That’s no-price. Stay on topic. Do not thread-drift, as one with the geez you are becoming. Tell them, already, the story that popped to mind

in

an

instant

overriding Leiber and Anderson and Manly Wade Wellman and all the other furlongs-in-the-lead choices that presented themselves unbidden. Who could overpower Blish and Bradbury, Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner, Sheck—? No! Dammit! It is impossible to stop listing them, the hundreds of them, that F&SF has gifted us year after year. So consider how improbable is my choice as the most unforgettable one in a lifetime of this periodical, in a lifetime of this writer:

It is a small, perfect, as-burning-bright wee piece, that (for me) towers over all the tsunamis and skyscrapers and Everests F&SF has raised. It is Ms. Jessie Thompson’s “Snowfall” from the September 1988 issue, her first published story.

Matheson’s “Born of Man and Woman” was his first published story, the first one submitted to Tony and Mick. Jessie Thompson’s first submission to F&SF was “Snowfall.” Both are brilliant, flat-out astonishing: I was rejected thirty-two straight times. Don’t tell me there’s a “God”!

...or Poul’s “Three Hearts and Three Lions” or Margaret St. Clair (as Idris Seabright)’s “The Listening Child” or the tragic Walter M. Miller’s breathtaking “A Canticle for Liebowitz” or Cliff Simak’s “How-2” or I’m drifting again ... this damned magazine is like a bag of baked potato chips ... one cannot stop piling remembrance after glee upon memories. Jessie Thompson. “Snowfall.” Yes, I’m going, stop shoving!

When it appeared in 1988, I wrote Ms. Thompson an unsolicited note that read, in part, “...having read ... a vast amount of the words available on this planet, it is not often one suffers the joy of having read a ‘first published’ story that can bring tears of pleasure.

“Ed Ferman spoke conservatively when he called it a ‘superior story.’ It is more than that. It is a jewel. I hope you won’t think me intrusive for having called both Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, editors of The Year’s Best Fantasy Anthology, to enthuse over ‘Snowfall’ and to urge them to include it in their best-of-1988 collection ... I welcome you to the ranks of those who write with love of the language and talent so fine and obvious that it brooks no criticism. Long may you indulge your art.”

And when Gordon said, “Pick a story as your best reading from F&SF,” after I eliminated all of my own, I called Ms. Thompson, whose byline has been little-seen since “Snowfall,” and I asked her for a few brief words of bio. She was demure and hesitant, as if she were, say, a baby fox peering out from under hedges. But she seemed okay with me passing along these bits of her past:

She quit working for Chevron at age forty, and sent her first story, “Snowfall,” to F&SF at the same time. She was forty; I guess that would be ‘88. At age forty-one, she told me, she suffered from such deep anxiety, and a chemical imbalance, depressions so intense that they put her in what she haltingly called “a kind of hospital.” Between 1991 and 1992 she was “in” three times. Prozac, and the usual nightmare that accompanies such case-histories. She said she’d been clean for fifteen years, but in 2005 the anxiety came back; 2006—electroshock therapy.

She is married now, and living in California.

I think she said she was working as a horticulturist.

She doesn’t write anymore.

Listen, I may have some of the foregoing screwed up. I was hardly unflustered by the emotional freighting of what Ms. Thompson was so calmly investing in someone who was no more than several steps up from a totally unknown repository for such secrets. I think I got it right, but even after years as a journalist and interviewer, used to taking notes as fast as I could, well, I was damned near incapacitated by the swiftness and seriousness of her words. I think I got it right.

And I asked her several times if she was sure she didn’t mind my setting this out in public. She said, ever so sweetly, “No, I don’t mind. It was my life.”

And this, faithful readers, lovers of great writing, kindly and compassionate each of you ... this is Ms. Jessie Thompson’s most wonderful moment. “Snowfall.”

22 February 2009

* * * *

Snowfall

By Jessie Thompson

The snow just falls and falls, white and silent and cold as frozen fox bones. The girl watches from her bedroom window, thinking of baby foxes, hot-blooded and soft-furred, running and burrowing under the dark pine trees behind the farmhouse.

“Cindy! Supper.” Cindy doesn’t answer. Her mother shouts up the stairs again. The radiator hisses as darkness captures another corner of the twilight room. Cindy hides the tiny fox skull, then rises from her bed and goes downstairs, her foot pausing in the air above each step.

One part of her mind is listening for the danger sounds that mean he’s home. But mostly she’s thinking about bright-eyed baby foxes.

The kitchen is hot and steamy. The windows are fogged over. Jack and Danny tumble like puppies in the corner, their squeals shredding the silence. Smaller, quieter noises come from her mother, crying at the stove. Cindy’s heart contracts. Her mother is banging pots and spoons to hide the choked-off little gasps of pain, but Cindy’s hearing is acute. I’m like a fox, she thinks. I have fox ears. I watch like a fox, and I can smell trouble coming.

He comes in. He stinks of cow shit. The boys stop tussling, but not fast enough. A slap on the side of the head catches Danny by surprise, and he cries out. Jack grabs his cowboy gun, the knuckles on his pudgy baby hand turning white. “Bang!” he shouts. “Bang! Bang!” The gun flies across the room as a rough hand yanks him into the air. He hits the wall and slides down into a wailing heap. Danny, face flushed, rolls over to cover him, holds him tight.

The big man’s face is red, too; he’s leaning forward, stepping closer. “Don’t you ever point that gun at me again, mister. You hear?”

Cindy glances at her mother. Her face is pale, and her jaw muscles are squeezed tight. She doesn’t look up from the stove.

Under Danny, Jack is whimpering. “Put him in his chair. Sit. You too, girl.” He glares at Cindy. She sees a strange flicker pass through his eyes. She’s seen it a lot lately. She doesn’t know what it means. His eyes drop away.

“Let’s eat, for christsakes. Jesus. I work myself ragged all day to come home to this bullshit?”

He takes a beer out of the refrigerator and thwunks the door shut. It springs back at him, and he kicks it closed. “You damn well better do something about these kids, Claire. If they get any wilder, I’m sure as hell not going to work my butt off to feed the little bastards.”

Cindy slides into her chair and spreads her napkin on her lap. She studies the brown crack in her plate. Her mother turns from the stove. Outside, the snow is falling. They eat. He complains.

In the night, she dreams. She dreams she’s in the woods, playing chase with baby foxes. She’s hiding in a gopher hole on the edge of the field, peering out, snout snuffling cold air, eyes darting around mischievously, laughter rising in her throat.

She wakes to darkness, can smell snow still falling outside. Her mother’s high-pitched voice wails up and down like a mournful siren, furious words lost in sobbing. A loud slap, and the sobbing stops. The radiator starts to bang, over and over, bangs and bangs and thrums through the house. Cindy’s heart is pounding in her ears. She thinks of baby foxes. Her breathing slows, and she falls asleep.

She sleeps and dreams of foxes in the pines, and then the monster comes. The huge white beast finds her hiding in the woods, sleeping with the foxes on a bed of warm snow. It looms over her, whispering that it won’t hurt her. It says it loves her. She knows it lies.

She tries to scream, but whiteness covers her face, presses against her mouth. A sharp pain stabs her belly. The beast is breathing hard, hissing foul breath. Pain shoots up her belly in cramping spasms. Hot monster slime trickles down her clenched throat.

She thinks of her friends the foxes, and they poke their noses out from behind the logs and bushes, watching with bright eyes as she struggles not to choke and slip into darkness. The monster is heavy on her, squeezing out the last of her air. It’s just snow, she thinks. I’ve fallen asleep outside, and the snow is burying me. Under the snow, it’s warm and soft and silent. Her muscles relax, and she surrenders to the whiteness. When it melts away into the night, she wakes up wet and sweating. There’s a funny smell in the air.

* * * *

She sits at the table with a woman in an apron and a man in dirty, faded blue overalls. Two little boys climb into chairs across the table from her. She sees them glance at the man sideways, fear in their bright eyes. Little foxes. Ready to dart away. Cindy can’t remember what she’s doing at this table, with these people.

A shadow, huge and white, crosses her mind, but she doesn’t grab it in time. Snow falls on it and covers its tracks. “Cindy,” the woman says. “Eat your food, hon.” Cindy thinks of foxes, how they tickle her ears with their snouts, and she forgets to puzzle out the woman’s words.

* * * *

A sweet-smelling, warm, safe burrow. Hours pass, unnoticed. Night drifts down, quiet as the snow. The huge white beast-thing comes again.

* * * *

Morning. She sits at a table with the smell of eggs and frying bacon in her nose. Outside, it’s blue. Bright, blinding blue pouring in the windows and the open door. Diamonds glitter in mounds on the windowsills. Bacon, eggs, table. Puzzled, she considers each item separately and then all together. The room is familiar. But the creatures make no sense. Since when do snow monsters eat bacon and eggs?

The one at the end of the table is huge. It’s the color of old, dirty snow. A clump of pine needles tops its head like hair. The monster glares at a smaller, very white monster standing at the stove. Both have black cinders where eyes should be. The monsters are wearing her parents’ clothes.

Suddenly the big monster stands up, rocking the table. Loud, angry noises pour out of it, out of a gaping hole that rips the bottom of its face apart. It throws a bowl down, hard. The smaller monster starts to wail, face hole splitting wider and wider until its black eyes disappear. Holding a frying pan high, it comes rushing toward the table.

Cindy notices for the first time the two little foxes sitting across the table from her. They grab each other and twitter and yap in fox voices, then slide from the table and run out the open door.

Cindy gets up to leave, too, but a hot, snowy monster grabs her shoulder. She winces with pain. The big monster picks her up and thrusts her in front of the frying pan, which slams into her back with a crack. She’s dizzy. The room is getting dark. The monster holds her up in the air now with one paw, holds her by the throat, roars something that sounds like, “Your fault—your fault....”

And then, suddenly, the monster’s belly turns the color of dirty snow when you pee on it, and Cindy’s underpants feel warm and wet. The monster hurls her to the floor, she’s down on her knees, crawling through the door, heading for the bright blue air. Crawling across the cold snow into the pine trees, where she’s sure the little foxes must have gone.

A booming noise is coming closer.

She hears the baby foxes yipping in the woods, and crawls toward them. The air shakes and roars. Her throat tastes like firecrackers. Two booms, and the frantic yipping stops. Another boom, and the smaller monster is right above her, spraying red all over the snow, crumpling to the ground. The big monster rushes toward Cindy, boom stick waving. It stops, frozen now, staring down at her with cinder eyes.

A truck is screaming down the long gravel road, horn blaring. The monster stops, turns around. Slowly, slowly, the short double stick goes into its own mouth hole. One more boom. There’s a roaring in Cindy’s ears. The blue sky darkens. Stars explode. And snow begins to fall.

* * * *

Low sun. Hot white walls. Cindy squats on her haunches, staring out the window. The pine trees are gone. Something clicks on, hums and buzzes. Cool air lifts the short hairs on her neck. Cindy strokes the little fox skull hidden in her gown; rhythmically polishes it. Her paw slips in and out of the eyeholes.

A door opens behind her. “Cindy, it’s time to eat. Come with me, honey.” The young woman approaches. Reaches out a gentle hand. Cindy crouches lower, ready to spring. A growl rises from deep in her throat. The woman yanks her hand back, turns abruptly, and leaves the room.

Cindy’s snout itches. She smiles and scratches it and stares with bright, feral eyes at the man in overalls watering the lawn outside. He sees her watching him, and smiles back. There’s the smell of cut grass in his smile, and maybe a whiff of cow shit. She bares her teeth and glares at him until he turns away.

Slowly, slowly, she moves toward the window. Her paw fumbles with the rusted lock. Frustrated, she tries her teeth. The window snaps open with a crack like the crack of a gun. Startled, she jumps. Pain shoots through her tail as it catches on the jagged sill, but she yanks the tail free and scampers across the wet grass. The man in overalls shouts.

Cindy crouches under the bushes, peering out, eyes laughing. A young woman runs across the lawn toward the smelly man in overalls. His arm waves wildly in Cindy’s direction. Behind them, a man in white bends over the windowsill. He holds up something red. Cindy grins. The pain in her tail is already gone.

Hunkered down, she backs out of the bush and into the warm, dark woods, yipping a greeting to the chuckling foxes. Above the shocked and frozen humans, the spray from the sprinkler rises higher and higher and turns to snow.