It Feels Like
Author : Iva Koevska
-Mommy, what does snow feel like?
I’m in the kitchen taking care of the dishes after dinner. I turn around and there she is. My little daughter’s staring at some snowflake hologram. It’s as big as her head, a gorgeous illusion of perfect symmetry. One you will hardly ever find. Since it doesn’t rain or snow anymore.
-Honey…
I’m delivering this climate speech for the hundredth time, trying to explain to someone who knows only sun, bright blue sky and a daily temperature of 22?C what does wind or raindrops or snowflakes or dew feel like. I hate those climate history classes and I know that kids need to know. It’s just that… I haven’t felt the slightest change of weather for some 20 years now. And the last time I saw and felt snow was right before the Great Installment. Right before they put this great big computer controlled factory dome up there in the sky to take care of the weather, the global warming and all the pollution. It’s like having an air conditioner switched on all the time in some weird incubator.
So now I’m trying to make up my mind and remember what snow was like. I must have been 10 years old back then. As old as my little darling.
-You know ice, don’t you? It’s wet and cold. Well, snow feels kind of like ice.
I’m lying. Like I lied when I told her that morning dew felt just wet. There was more to that. We hated and we loved the change in weather back in the old days. Back then we were not the prisoners of an artificial sky designed to “bring you comfort and safe environment for your children”. We were not supposed to experience rain and snow and dew through holograms. We lived through every gift or punishment nature had for us.
Oh, I know what snow felt like. What it was like to dance in the perfect whiteness of winter, making angels in the snow. What it was like to have a snowflake melt on your tongue, to take a handful of these perfectly shaped jewel flakes and imprison them in an ice sphere marked with the warmth of your hands. What it was like to fall in love with the chill of the clear winter sky…
It felt like freedom and childhood and love.
But how do you tell that to someone who’ll never know more than sun?
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.
Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member
Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.
Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com