A Thankful Blizzard Pt. 02

"I believe so, Helen. Thank you, once again."

"You kids looked like you needed some help. Here we go then." Helen pulled back into the blizzard. From the backseat, I couldn't even see where the road was, but apparently she had it memorized or could see more than I, for within just a few more minutes, she announced our arrival at Aspen View. I asked Kat to stay in the warm truck while I talked to the owner to get a room. I found it funny that I couldn't even see any of the cabins, and was practically on top of the office door before I could see it.

A thick, barrel-chested man, with a beard that looked more like a rope suited for a ship hanging from his chin, greeted me, having emerged from the attached living quarters.

"Well, I didn't expect to have any customers during this frightful storm. What can I do for you, son?"

"I just need a cabin for 2 so we can ride out this storm. What does each cabin have in it?"

"Oh, all but two of my cabins have 3 rooms, one bedroom, one main room and a bathroom. There's a small stove, refrigerator, sink, and a wood burnin' stove in case the power cuts out, thought I got backup generators around if that does happen. The other two have 4 rooms, but they're both occupied now, sorry."

"What do you have available?"

"I've got good ol' number 1 ready, just a short ways away from the office here." He pointed a finger as thick as a sausage off to my right side. "Will that work for you, son?"

"Yes of course thank you. Oh, and how does checkout work, or staying for more than one day?"

He grabbed the behemoth beard hanging from his chin, and while stroking it, had a simple answer.

"Think of it as pay-per-view, but I do pay-per-night. When you're all done, just bring the key back to me and I'll bill you for the nights you stayed." He paused, asked "Hey, need any help?"

"It's pretty cold out there, but if you could, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Alright son, just a moment then." He proceeded to bundle up in some fancy cold gear he had tucked into a closet. "Ok, just pull your vehicle up to number 1, I'll meet you there."

"Thanks again, sir."

"Please, call me Max."

"Ok, thanks Max."

"Not a problem, Son."

We headed outside, with I climbing into the truck and telling Helen which way cabin number 1 was, and Max disappearing into the storm.

"Oh, I love number 1!" Helen exclaimed with a laugh. "Max gave you one of the best cabins, Sweetie!" She continued to drive through the wall of white, somehow navigating her way just fine.

When we arrived, I hopped out and rushed to bring everything inside with Max's help. When he first saw Kat in the seat, he paused for a moment, before he said something much like Helen had.

"Well, little lady, you're a tad bit underdressed. Polar Bear club?" Kat giggled at his guess, shaking her head no. Max spotted Helen."Oh, Helen, beautiful lady, seems you've rescued these two wayfarers."

"They came into the diner, before the storm looked too bad, but I thought I'd help them get safely here to your cabins."

"Alright." He paused, glancing around him at the swirling snow. "Good thing you did too. Ok, almost done." He hoisted the bottles of water and carried them in, the last of the supplies I had purchased with Kat. I shook his hand and watched him disappear into the storm.

Back at the truck, I offered my coat and hand to Kat, who gladly accepted both.

"Helen, I thank you once again. I'm not sure if I could have driven this as well as you." She beamed at my compliment before waving us off.

"You Sweeties stay safe, stay warm. And don't forget to stop by the diner on your way out of town!"

Kat and I waved goodbye, then rushed into the cabin. While unloading, I hadn't taken the time to survey the interior, so with the door shut, Kat shrugging out of my coat, I stopped and looked around. Max had tastefully decorated the interior with subtle Native American influences here and there – a woven rug of bright colors, a dream catcher hung from one wall, a painting of mesas and red rocks from another. There were a few wooden chairs and one wooden sofa huddled around a fireplace, a small kitchen table with chairs – everything looked handcrafted and customized for this cabin.

"Wow, Paul, look." Kat was staring out a large bay window, complete with seating area. It looked as if the window had been painted white, with an occasional movement of the snow here and there, "My God... had I been out there, I..." Her voice trailed off, and I thought I heard a sniffing sound.

She surprised me when she turned around and threw her arms around me, squeezing me in a warm embrace.

"Thank you Paul, for saving me." She breathed into my chest. I wrapped my arms nervously around her, returning the hug. Her body felt amazing pressed against mine. It was as if she was made to fit into my arms. I closed my eyes, slowly inhaling her scent. I felt arousal flooding my pants almost immediately, getting scared she'd notice and think me a pervert, but as she pulled gently away, I think she noticed my hammering heart instead.

"You're nervous?" Her green eyes looked up at mine, searching me. They seemed like searchlights, probing my soul, but I nodded to her.

"Like, uh, I said, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever met." I slowly moved back toward the door to start packing some of our belongings away, anything really to hide my erection. "We should get some of the stuff put away before it goes bad."

"Oh right, I almost forgot!" Kat hustled over to help me, and within just a few minutes, we had everything put away, chatting while we worked.

"What should we do now?" I pointed to the DVD player I had purchased. "We could watch a few movies, or just talk?"

"I'd like to talk to you some more." She grinned. "I'd like to hear more about the snowflakes. Would you mind describing some while I sketch a picture?"

"Ok." I sat down on the sofa while she gathered her stuff, setting up on the floor rug by the fireplace, using the coffee table for her sketch pad. "What did you want to know?"

"Back at the diner, you mentioned there was a long answer for the uniqueness of snowflakes. What did you mean by that?" Her hand was already sketching something.
Again, from this angle, I could see her wonderful cleavage. Before I got too bothered, I cleared my throat and answered.

"Ah, yeah. The long answer is largely what my research and dissertation is based upon. So, first, when someone asks that question about snowflakes being identical, or even alike, we have to determine just what that person means by being alike, the same, identical, unique, whatever word they may choose. If I remember you asked about the uniqueness, each one being different, right?"

"Yeah." She paused to look up from her sketch. "I mean, there has to be millions of snowflakes out there right now. Couldn't a few of them have similarities and be copies of each other?"

"You know the philosophical question about the tree falling in the woods, if no one was around to hear it, would it still make a sound?" She nodded. "That addresses a simple concept of the human necessity to exist. But, does sound, a vibration, depend upon our ears, or the source of the vibration?"

"Well, the source, right?"

"Yep. With science, we're able to assess the whole situation. A tree falling and hitting the ground would cause massive vibrations, the essence of what sound is, spreading out until the energy dissipates. If no one or nothing is around to hear these vibrations, it doesn't hold much significance then, as the falling of the tree itself. But our perception wouldn't change the way the tree caused vibrations in the ground."

"Ok, I follow that part, but what does that have to do with snowflakes?"

"If no one is around to monitor and compare each and every snowflake to the other, can anyone be absolutely certain they aren't alike after all? That's where a small amount of uncertainty comes into the equation, and probability arises. I mentioned that earlier at the diner, that there's more configurations water molecules can take to make a snow crystal than there are theorized atoms in the universe. Having two identical snowflakes has less chance than if you entered various lotteries and won all of them, every day, for the rest of your life."

"Wow... That would be unlikely then."

"Exactly. Now, my long answer involves more semantics, in a way, as the clarification of 'alike' and how you define a 'snowflake' are more important to the answer. Make sense so far?"

"Yeah, go on." Kat was grinning again, her pencil sat down for the moment, resting on her paper.

"I already mentioned that nano-snowflakes can be the same, since they can be made up of countable molecules. Beyond that simple fact, some other things in nature can and are, in fact, identical. Take, for example, how we understand the electron to be. It's considered an elementary particle, or being basic, not made up of other parts. These electrons are actually understood to be absolutely identical in every way – a chief idea behind quantum physics itself. Now, a water molecule is much more complex, and, in fact, there are differing water molecules. Ever hear of heavy water?"

"Yeah, my grandpa used to talk about it, on the ranch."

"Well, that's only a small example of how water can differ. See, water, being made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, usually come in the form of basic hydrogen and oxygen, O-16, you could say, describing the proton-neutron makeup of the atom. Sometimes, hydrogen exists as deuterium, and sometimes oxygen exists as O-18. These atoms aren't the same as the more common forms, and during the crystalline production of ice, can affect the structure. You might see a small portion, like 1 in every 500 atoms being like one of these. Since a single snowflake can be made up of a massive amount of water molecules, it's safe to say there's a slightly lesser, yet still massive amount of different molecules in there. All these molecules are scattered at random through the snowflake, adding even more uncertainty on the exact arrangement. So on a molecular level, the chance of having two snowflakes being identical is indistinguishable from zero."

"That's... deep." Kat was staring out the window now. "There's so many snowflakes... and all of them are truly unique?"

"I'd stake my entire dissertation on that fact, because I'd have a greater chance of being right than winning my money back in any lottery game."

"God, Paul, you are so smart!" Kat was turned back towards me, watching me now. "You know this stuff better than I know which pencil to use to get a different effect in my sketches. And it's fun listening to you!"

I blushed. Up to this point, I'd never found a more willing audience than her. Even students who were majoring in chemistry would often get bored with this information.

"Thanks... I'm flattered you enjoy it."

"You sounded like there was more to the story though, right?"

"Semantically speaking, yes. If you expand your view of a snowflake to the macro level, say, the naked eye, or even a magnifying lens, and find the most basic structure of snowflake, like a pillar or prism, there's similarities. When the air's just cold enough to freeze the water, you get a hexagonal prism shape. It's entirely possible to have two flakes then, weighing 'the same,'" I emphasized my point by adding air-quotes with my fingers. "Or at least with how accurate your scale is - and measuring 'the same' across. That idea quickly dissolves though, when you consider that even prisms have crystalline structures stacking differently, and of course, how many water molecules they're actually made up of. Not to mention the environmental effects on snow – dirt, wind, temperature, relative humidity – all these things shape and reshape the crystal, even after it's made."

"Wow, then it's very much like humans – we may look alike on the outside, but molecularly we're different, and our environment shapes us constantly." I raised my eyebrows, not in disbelief – well, partial disbelief that this beautiful woman was this astute – but mostly in surprise that she, once again, had a perfect analogy. "And that's why you study them, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Kat, that was an amazing analogy... one I'd never considered before."

"Well, my dad always praised me for my observational skills." She grinned. It was at that point that I noticed her sketch. She had drawn a recreation of the valley we had been able to see shortly before the blizzard arrived. A valley I had seen every time I drove back home, yet I couldn't recall as much detail as she had with a pencil. I sank off the couch and slid next to her, examining the picture more closely. That's when I noticed the snowflakes. Scattered throughout her picture, little snowflakes looked to be floating across the page, each one looking different from the rest. I felt like I was staring at a photograph, not a sketch.

"Wow... Kat... This is utterly amazing! I mean, look at this, it's, it's stunning! You are an incredible artist!" I turned to look at her and saw she was slightly blushing. She rested her hand on my hand then.

"Thank you, Paul. You inspired me, actually. Your passion for snowflakes is amazing. Not to mention, you saved me, so I could actually be here to draw them." She leaned forward and placed a kiss on my cheek. I wonder if I looked as shocked as I felt. Of course, those lips touching my cheek had to have been one of the best things I'd ever felt in my life. I sat there stunned for a few moments, before thinking to regain myself and respond to her or something.

"You, you're welcome." I was thinking what to say or do next, something, as I looked back at the picture. Then I realized it. "Kat, tell me, how did you get started in art?"

She grinned and leaned back, stretching her hands behind her and leaning against them, staring out the window. This had the effect of pushing her chest forward a little bit, a fact I was really aware of.

"I was a little girl the first time I remember being praised for my art. My grandpa had bought me a little pack of crayons and some paper. That afternoon, I sat on our porch and sketched the ranch. When I showed it to him, he gasped and said that was the most beautiful picture he'd ever seen. He strode right over to the fridge and tacked it. He told me we had to post it up where everyone would be able to see it in all its beauty. Throughout the rest of the evening, the rest of my family said pretty much the same thing. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to make everyone so happy with a picture, so I kept making more. By the time I was in middle school, I was being entered in art contests and winning first place. I think I had over a couple hundred blue ribbons."

"Wow, that's impressive. I think the most I did in middle school was make my mom and dad crazy with all the things I was trying to mix."

She laughed. "So you were a little scientist from the get-go huh?

"Well, not the most wise one, actually. I remember when I was much younger, I was in my parents' bathroom mixing toothpastes and mouthwashes, anything I thought I could get a reaction out of and see that big poof of smoke like they showed in the cartoons. After no success, I noticed I had used a lot of my dad's mouthwash, a yellow one. Afraid I'd get in trouble, I did the only thing a young kid would think to replace the yellow liquid."

"No..." she giggled, covering her mouth, "You didn't!"

"Yep. I peed in it. I thought, 'well, pee is yellow, so is this mouthwash, alright!'" She was laughing now, clutching her side with one hand, covering her mouth with the other. She looked so beautiful in that moment.

"Oh my God! He must have been so pissed!" She snorted some more, "No pun intended!"

I was laughing now at this point too, then finished the story. "Yeah. I was playing in my bedroom when I hear the loudest spitting sound I'd ever heard, followed by him screaming my name 'PAUL JACOB GOODMAN!!! DID YOU PEE IN MY MOUTHWASH!?' Never mind the fact I had a brother and sister. He just knew it had to be me." While she was laughing, I did see she had reacted to my name. I wondered momentarily what it was, but she interrupted my thoughts.

"Oh my gosh, that's funny!" She wiped her eyes, tears having formed at the corners. "You must have been a riot to your parents."

"Yeah, they remind me of that every time I come home to visit." I realized she had been telling me about herself and I interrupted with my story. "I'm sorry, I cut in with my story, please continue."

"No no, that was worth it." It seemed her laughing had finally subsided. "Oh man. Where was I?"

"You had mentioned the blue ribbons."

"Oh yeah! So, my grandpa was proud of me, always praising my work, but then I noticed after a while, my dad wasn't as happy anymore. I'd bring home another blue ribbon, and he'd smile, tell me 'that's nice dear' and get back to work. It hurt, but at that time, I didn't know what was going on in his life." She took a big breath, and as if remembering something, announced "I'm pretty thirsty, how about you?"

"Oh, yeah, all the talking, what were you thinking of having? We've got some juices and milk, that wine we picked up, or I could mix us a drink?"

"Oooh, Mister - no, Doctor Chemistry! What are you going to mix for me?" She had a mischievous look to her face, probably recalling my story.

"Hey, in my defense, I spent some time studying drink mixes, because I was fascinated how those liquids mixed to make different flavors and drinks. I just can't cook."

"Well you're in luck, because I pride myself on my cooking skills." She stood up, and walked the short distance over to the fridge, with me following shortly behind. I began pulling a couple glasses down (thankfully the cabin was stocked with tableware and silverware, since I forgot to buy some) and got the liquor out.

"Are you feeling hungry yet?" She was peeking into the fridge, looking at our stock. "I could whip us up something yummy for lunch."

"Well, I am feeling a little bit hungry." I hadn't realized so much time had passed since we left the diner. This woman was something else entirely. I was enjoying myself immensely in the conversation, hearing her stories, watching her sketch.

Kat got to work, using some of the ingredients which, at the time we bought them, I didn't know what they'd be for. I got busy mixing some drinks and our conversation picked back up.

"Do you mind sharing what was happening to your father?" I asked after a while. She had just mixed up some dough and was spreading out what looked like a pie crust. I'd had our drinks mixed for some time, so I set about making refills.

"Sure. That was when we started getting grief from the McMahons, again."

"You mean the same family of that first guy you mentioned? Wasn't that like, 10 generations ago?" I thought I had counted the great-greats properly.

"I'm set to be the eighth, actually. My grandpa told me stories of how, throughout the time the land has been in our possession, the McMahons have tried ways of buying it, forcing, intimidating – you name it – just to get access to that land."

"You can add kidnapping and attempted murder to that list, now with you." I added, thinking how she explained she was taken and blindfolded then dropped off in these mountains.

"Well, that was already attempted. My grandpa's sister, actually. Luckily they failed, she was returned safe and sound and my grandpa worked on a sort of truce that lasted until I was just starting high school. That's when they started giving grief to my dad."

"What'd they do?"

"Started killing his cattle."

"Oh my God. Did you guys call the cops?"

"Of course, but there was never enough evidence to prove it was them. We knew, of course. But he'd find cattle dead, fences torn down, all without clear evidence for the police to do anything. The head of the McMahon family denied having any knowledge of it. That's when I figured it out. The twins, Jasmine and Jasper, would leave me hints at school. Again, nothing concrete or provable. But they left a series of hints – plastic toy cows with paint or cuts like our cattle had been found."