Snowman's Revenge

Snowman’s Revenge
(A short work of fiction, with a little bit of fact included.)  

After the snow a couple weeks ago, the boys spent an entire day building snowmen in the yard. They then spent the final ten minutes of daylight running full speed into the towers of snow. They were big boys, high school football players and lineman types.They giggled and laughed as each snowman exploded in a cloud of white powder.

It was so much fun, in fact, that after dark that night, they decided to take their newly found show on the road. They drove to the money neighborhoods, where the suburban families built the most picturesque snowmen and snow forts imaginable.

The boys drove around the alien upscale neighborhoods until they found a particularly nice piece of young urban professional snow art. One of the big boys opened the car door, sprinted across the lawn, and obliterated the snow statues to powder and small chunks of snowball. The activity was repeated several times across several city blocks until each of the boys had a chance to steamroll a snowman

A week or so later, it snowed again. A snow day kind of snow, complete with a foot of wet, packing snow. That evening they packed into a Toyota five speed and head out for the the wealthy side of town again. These are not bad high school kids, its just the winter boredom and the recent snowstorm have left few options for entertainment. So, for absolutely no good reason at all, they head back to the blow up a few more snowmen.

The car stopped at a dark corner house and the biggest kid stepped out of the car just outside the shadow of the street lamp. He set into his offensive lineman three-point stance pointed in the direction where he took out a snowman last time they visited the neighborhood. He quietly called out a cadence.

“Down.”

A few giggles of anticipation from inside the car.

“Set.”

All went quiet.

“Hut.”

The man-child exploded out of his stance. The snow flew from each powerful step he took. Faster and faster he moved toward the newest snowman version in this yard. It was a majestic giant of a snowman, at least eight feet tall, four huge balls of snow stacked on top of one another. Closer and closer, the lineman approached his target and he lowered to perfect technical blocking position, ready to pancake block the snowman into oblivion.

THUD! He collided with the snowman. Instead of a beautiful white cloud of snow, the air rapidly left his body as he bounced off the snowman and landed on his back in the deep snow. This snowman's exterior was a layer of thick, solid ice! 

Gasping for air, the twinkling stars moved in circles above his head. He heard laughing from the direction of the front porch. He rolled his head to see a pajama clad four or five-year-old boy high fiving his bath-robed father just inside the threshold of their front door.

Finally able to inhale the sharp, cold air, he stood up and staggered in defeat back to the open car door. Pride wounded and body screaming in pain, he fell into the safety of the Toyota just as the young boy’s voice floated across the yard.

“Don’t mwess wiff our snowmans, no more!”

The car exploded in laughter, save for one occupant, who reached for the door handle. As he pulled the car door closed, he caught one last look at the snowman. The street light reflected off its solid ice-encrusted surface as it stood tall and proud, smiling a wide charcoal briquet smile at the winter world.