The writing prompt from NANO fiction is: Write a story... where winter disappears forever.
No More Winter
There was once a man who hated winter - hated the ice and the snow and the naked black branches of the trees all around. His story is a tragedy - but only because he was both motivated and wealthy, and thus unable to learn how to accept the things that he did not like.
This is what he did. He bought two homes, one in the Northern hemisphere and one in the Southern hemisphere. And he spent six months of each year in each home, carefully timing his travels so as to never feel the biting winds nor see the pale winter sun. It was a simple solution, as the solutions for the rich often are, and it worked: the man never experienced winter ever again in his lifetime.
So why is this story a tragedy? It is because once the man solved his problem, he never had to think about winter ever again in his lifetime. It became neither a source of satisfaction nor dissatisfaction; instead it was simply gone as a concept, never to trouble his mind ever again. And so perhaps the man was not unhappy; but neither was he happy. He simply was, and what satisfaction there can be in that I cannot fathom.
beep-beep-beep...
Confession: this was originally going to be a story about a bunch of penguins driving the earth into the sun, and don't deny that you would have wanted to read it.
But alas! I guess an entire day spent with my daughter has imposed a lecturing mood upon me, and that's why I wrote a dry - and frankly, illogical and nonsensical - fable instead. Ah well, maybe I'll use this in a story where a confused little girl is forced to listen to one of her father's bizarre and rambling stories.
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