Hungover, Jerry stared at his cereal bowl and asked the snowman on his right to pass the milk. The third time he asked, he looked up and saw the milk was actually next to the snowman seated to Jerry's left. Jerry apologized and poured the crystallized milk on his cereal. It'd been out all night, but Jerry wasn't worried about it.
He produced a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. Enjoying the smoke, he looked over his silent breakfast companions. The snowman on the left was wearing his sunglasses atop a beer bottle nose, plus a grin of black olives. The snowman on the right wore olives in his eyes, but didn't have a mouth; he had a pair of bottles affixed like t-rex arms. "Sorry about the arms," Jerry offered, poking a hole for the snowman to smoke from. "Guess I was feeling whimsical last night." He bestowed the cigarette and moved on.
The bathroom door wouldn't open. Reflexively, he knocked on it. He immediately thought, why would you do that? You've been stuck out here by yourself for four days! He pushed his shoulder against the door and shoved it open.
He was greeted by a snowman atop the porcelain throne, its plunger and toilet brush arms raised in shock. For some brief period of time, the closed bathroom must have been warm; the snowman was frozen to the seat. Jerry resigned himself to the outdoors to take care of business.
Opening a second story window, he shot the breeze. The snow was only two feet below the window ledge; six days of record snowfall had turned his cabin into a hole in the ground. No power, no heat, and the beer was finished. He didn't have long, and he was losing his sense of humor. Could he wait it out?
Jerry looked over at the bed, piled with every blanket and towel in the cabin he could find. Next to his sleeping spot, a snowwoman (he hoped) lay stretched out beside, a sleeved shirt draped around its head like pigtails.
"I gotta get out of here."
Downstairs again, Jerry rummaged for the rest of his outdoor gear; just a glove and a boot to go. Three more snowmen were in the living room, posed in mid-bacchanal. What had started as an attempt to clear the snow had become his drunken art project. God, how many did he make?
He found the other boot by the non-working fireplace, clutched by a snowman with a poker for one arm. The other arm was a mailbox flag; at the sight of it, hope took root in Jerry's mind. If he made it that far in his drunken stupor, then he might have a path to the road, and civilization.
He opened the front door: there was the path he had made, by shoveling, pawing, and rolling the snow into his house in medium-large boulders, stacking them into temporary tenants. He grabbed his goggles, and walked out the door, shouting as he went, "You guys better be gone when I get back!"
Inspired by Discover Magazine article, "The Moon's Water Came From Earth"
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