Our Daily Beard – 22/03/13
Well, it’s snowing again.
Mid bloomin’ March!
It’s a bit of a head trip, so I’m going to make the most of it and ‘do’ a flash fiction for today’s post.
Behold:
Snow Business
Frosty sighed with relief as he signed the last document in a stack of one hundred.
“Frosty T. Snowman, President,” he muttered under his breath as he scribbled his signature. He didn’t like using a pen; they were hard to hold in his stick-hands.
He leaned back in the chair and groaned. If he had to sign just one more permission slip, he’d simply melt. Across the world, thousands of junior snowmen, flake engineers, drift co-ordinators and cloud chillers were making snow and they needed his official sign-off. Of course, winter was the busiest time of year- it was strictly seasonal work- but it still made his head ache like an ice-cream brain freeze.
The intercom on Frosty’s desk buzzed. He grumbled and pressed the button.
“Sir, I have a call from Jack Frost-”
“Yeah, yeah, put it through, Darlene.”
There was a moment of silence and electronic clicking.
“Hey hey, how’s my favourite fat snowy bastard?!”
“Frostbite me, Jack. What’s up?”
“Chill out, dude, or you’ll pop a coal. I just wanted to find out whether you’re going to need frost in the UK this week. A lot of the guys are grumbling about this late winter.”
“Just one more week, if you can, Jack. I know it’s a pain, but you must have some frosters that want the overtime?”
“Yeah, I’ll find someone. How much snow are you making? You know it’s almost spring, right?”
“I know, but I promised Easter that I’d cover for him for a while. This is the last of it.”
“Should have known that hopped-up bunny would be to blame. We still on for poker tonight?”
“Damn, is that tonight? Okay… I’ll have to check with Sue first. I’m meant to have the snowkids.”
Jack Frost made a whiplash sound down the phone.
“Jees, grow a pair of snowballs, Frosty!”
“Whatever, asshole. We’ll see who’s laughing when I take all your money tonight.”
“Ha, don’t get your hopes up. See you then.”
Jack hung up as Darlene knocked at the door and entered. She had a gorgeous, round body of nicely compacted snow. Frosty couldn’t help but admire her curves- and those dark coal eyes.
“Shall I process all these permission slips, sugar?” she asked.
“Please, Darlene. And hold my meetings for a few hours.”
“Yes, sir. You have a 4.30 with the senior snowpartners, shall I cancel it?”
Frosty groaned- he’d forgotten about that.
“Nah… just… wake me up at 4. I need to catch up on my sleet.”
Darlene closed the door and Frosty took out his eyes, leaning back in his chair. The sooner that the summer holidays came, the better.
Just as he did every day at 3pm, he briefly considered retiring. Then he smirked- of course he’d never retire. The job was part of him. He muttered to himself as he dozed off:
“There’s no business like snow business.”
[sociable]