Existential Stomach Eater
I find it funny how the sun is so persistent. Through bordering on black-out curtains and closed-tight blinds, a wall of golden light sits on the other side of my window. It’d be peaceful if there weren’t two blaring problems. My alarm and my dog. The early morning isn’t enough to stop them on their own, which leaves me taking charge.
I press ‘stop’ on my phone’s alarm and pick up my dog, slipping my shoes on and heading towards the back door. My dog’s inability to walk down the stairs to get there is uncanny, and step by step I feel the chill creeping from the outside.
Should’ve put a jacket on, I think to myself as I unlatch the lock and open the door.
One foot on the pavement turns to none as it slips from beneath me.
The world spins.
My dog barely feels a thing (she’s losing brain cells by the minute).
Then suddenly, I’m a kid again.
I’m bundled up in overalls, a tight jacket, a heavy coat on top of that, two layers of socks and hats, and gloves that are way too big for my hands. The area around me is impossibly blinding—white up to my kneecaps and fresh with hints of sparkles that look too pretty to be natural. My mom is holding her camera, my dad is aiming a snowball-filled throw at her, and my brothers are trying to build a snowman twice the size of them combined.
The snowball misses my mom and hits the side of my head.
As I tilt to the side the snow catches up to me a lot faster. It’s soft. Peaceful. Beautiful. I barely feel the bites of the chill and swoop of my stomach just as my face touches—
I land back in my body. And, on the concrete.
Compared to when I was a kid, the snow I look at now is pathetic. It’s dirty, icy and painful, but maybe I’m just beating it while it’s down because I’m petty from falling. I want nothing more than to go back inside and pretend my dad’s security camera didn’t catch me wiping out. Though, I have a feeling it’s already saved in his camera roll to be shown to me later while he’s dying from laughter.
It takes me a second to get my surroundings in check and finally place my dog, who is just having the time of her life sitting in my arms, in the backyard. Before I ran back inside, another snowman caught my eye. It’s not as big as when I was a kid, nor is it even fully put together anymore, but this time it was made by me. Just the base of it remains, the rest has all crumbled and melted away into nothingness.
When I was making it, the snow was unstable. It stuck, sure, but when I tried to create something close to life, it never stayed together. After many, many, many, many tries I got the bottom and middle piece to stand, but it didn’t look like your average snowman. No, for some reason, it turned out to look like a Greek Goddess. I’m not even joking. Like those statues in the museums, it had that slight tilt and head that looks too perfect to be cut off with malice. After trying for even longer to make it look at least close to an average snowman, I gave up and just gave it extra support on the bottom and placed little flower buds as her eyes and buttons with sticks for arms.
Then, two days later, it was gone. Like it was never something to treasure in the first place. I guess no longer being kid has adjusted my effectiveness of creating a glorified snow cone.
Realizing I don’t have time to wallow, I run back inside and start getting my morning routine out of the way before I go to school. I make my morning drink, take my medicine, bring my dog back inside, get changed into a loose hoodie and sweats, all that fun boring stuff.
Why have I changed?
Just as fast as the thought came, it imprinted itself into my brain. Guess we’re playing this game to start off the day. I put on the last of my jewelry and start packing my school bag.
Why was my life so easily adjusted to a societal norm that at the age I am now I am no longer able to enjoy creating snowmen?
Was it because of how I acted growing up? How I’ve been saying I don’t believe in Santa??
What, honestly, is stopping me from going back outside right now and making a whole army of snowmen?
It’s the same answer you hear from parents. When you ask them why they can’t come to your recital or school field trip.
Responsibility.
I am responsible for every aspect of my life. All my actions and the consequences of them. If I don’t go to class, if I don’t warm up my car before I leave my house, if I don’t do my homework, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
I can’t be a kid anymore.
I can’t wake up on a snowy winter’s day and wait for my parents to get a phone call that school is cancelled, and have them wrap me in so many layers that I can’t comfortably put my arms down. I can’t hope there will be enough snow on the ground to make snow angels. I can’t get scolded for being outside too long, only to be rewarded with a hot bath and even hotter hot chocolate before watching a movie.
Not anymore.
Because, quite honestly, despite everything I just said, I don’t like winter. I hate feeling cold. I hate that I can’t drive easily, and I hate that I have to clean off my car when all I want to do is stay inside and read. That lingering thought wasn’t supposed to spur on those questions. I know why I have changed—but the feeling that comes with knowing is an unavoidable two-story wall that crumbles without command.
The snowmen I create today will know nothing of the same love that was given to their predecessor’s years and years ago. And as much as I wish it wasn’t my fault—that it was my image of responsibility that took over my growing body—there is nothing that has led up to this moment to convince me otherwise.
My stomach lurches as the key starts the ignition. My car takes a bit to warm up. 10 minutes at least, but even then, it’s pushing it. It’s a wonder that she hasn’t blown up in my face at the slightest press of the gas pedal before I get onto the road. I wouldn’t blame her if she did, she’s old.
The streets are full of salt and people who can’t drive, but while on my journey, I notice something. I didn’t see a single kid playing in the snow. Granted, it’s rough and the opposite of what snow someone would willingly want to play in, but I never see them anymore. There are no cheers of excitement for the year’s first snowfall.
Now that I think about it, the last time I even really played outside in the snow was with my childhood best friend. We lived right across the street from each other and waited at the same bus stop before school. Every morning I’d wake up, get ready for school and walk across the street to knock on his door. He’d be all bundled up too and I’d make fun of him for it before we walked to the end of the block.
That was our spot. Of course, we’d also have his big backyard and mine, but here the snow piled up just right to where we could make so many snowmen, snowballs, anything we could think of was possible and built there and, eventually, thrown at each other until the bus arrived. The other kids would join in or ignore us in favour of pretending to be a statue, so the cold would somehow ignore them back.
Never worked of course.
This would happen every morning until it all washed away. Because that’s what it does. That stupid sun that begs to enter my life again through my windows every morning helped push every remaining bit of fun down the drain.
He didn’t come back to make more.
He passed away before he could see the next year’s snowfall.
I think he would be upset to know that I don’t like winter or snow anymore, but in my defense, neither did he. We suffered together—but I guess not all in the same way.
Familiarity.
That’s what I see in our snow now. We’re uncaring—the snow turns to jagged ice and slush before someone gets the chance to shovel it all away if they even do. It’s protecting itself.
I see it as I set my car in the too tight parking spots and walk on the endless path that only seems to get longer the more the icy winds blow. I get tripped up by a block of ice disguised as a snowball and see it. Hidden faces of people who are too shy to step off the path and discover what could possibly be below the surface.
We’re all protecting what we have left.
A puff of cold breath leaves my lips as I walk in the door of the building. My knuckles are cracked and bloody because I forgot my gloves and I don’t own a winter coat. I really should get one, so my friends don’t keep giving me looks like I’m insane.
Now that I am blocked off from the cold and my nausea will finally settle, I can just continue with my day until the sun melts the snow and it all fades away.
Kaitlyn Nemeth is a poet who dabbles in fiction writing. She is a senior at Kean University in New Jersey with a focus in Psychology and a minor in English. When she isn't writing, Kaitlyn spends her time reading, playing video games, hanging out with her friends, or cuddling with her two dogs. Existential Stomach Eater is her first first-person fiction piece.
