By the Squoishomellow Squad

Charles the blue bear went with Evan on a trip to the snow. One afternoon while Evan was off skiing, Charles got left on a chair on the back porch. He was dozing off when he felt a cold prickle next to his left ear. He woke up and was just about to brush his ear when a faint voice said, “please don’t smash me! I’m a snowflake.”

“What on earth?” Said Charles. “I didn’t know snowflakes could talk. Can you tell me about your life?”

“I sure can,” said the snowflake. And so he began…

“Where should I start? My story is infinite. Do I start in the lake? The ocean? The cloud? In an animal? In the air? In the pot? And how far back should I go? I’ve been around since the beginning of time (literally). I was in the Big Bang! More recently, in the last 5 billion years (or more, I lost count many millions of years ago), I’ve been on Earth.

I’ve been in the stomachs of soldiers in wars. I met George Washington. I helped erode the stones. I was in the moat of Blarney Castle. Niagara Falls is like a roller coaster, only this roller coaster has a really long and far drop. 

“I have frozen myself around dinosaurs and in Sacramento, California, prospectors used me to try and find gold.”

“Wow, you must be exhausted,” Charles exclaimed.

“Why would I be?” Said the snowflake. 

“This is going really deep. Really, really, really deep! You’re talking about before I even existed! So, how did you end up on my ear?”

“First I am an evaporated snowflake.”

“What is evaporation?” Interrupted Charles. The snowflake said, “Evaporation is when water is turned from a liquid to a gas.

“But what is a gas?” questioned Charles.

“Gas is when a liquid is heated up a ton and it becomes a fast-moving molecule.”

“But what’s a—” Charles started to say.

“A molecule is when several atoms are together. And an atom is made up of several other smaller things (just trust me on that). Atoms exist in almost everything (except for the stuff that makes up them).”

“Wow, that’s really, really, deep, really, really, really, deep. But, how exactly did you end up on my ear?“ said Charles.

“Getting back to evaporation. I’m an evaporated snowflake.”

Charles interrupted, “but can you at least explain to me…maybe…what you’ve been up to this month? Some people haven’t lived as long as you so…yeah…”

The snowflake squinted one eye and kept the other open in a thinking face. “What’s a month?”

“How can you not know what’s a month? I learned what a month, a day, and what time is in a day when I was just a bear cub.”

The snowflake asked, “what’s a day?”

“Let me think. How about we trade? You teach me, and I’ll teach you. We can start with months and days.”

Just then, Gordon the baby shark and Bob the octopus hopped up the snowy stairs with their ski equipment.”

Gordon asked, “who are you talking to?”

Bob asked, “what’s that on your ear?”

Charles replied to both at once, “it’s a talking snowflake.”

“Cool! What’s it do…besides talk?” they asked.

They crowded around Charles’s ear and started to ask questions like two machine guns firing bullets.

“Can it tap dance”

“Does it have a hat?”

“Can you feed it?”

“Can I feed it”

“Is it really alive?”

“Can it actually, really, talk”

“Can it walk?”

“Can you harness its power to fly, and then fly around the world with it?”

“How did it get on your ear?”

“Is this the only talking snowflake in the world?”

“You are SO lucky!”
The snowflake cried out, “These questions are offensive! I’m a living being, too. I’m a deep, mature snowflake—unlike you—who are irrelevant stuffed animals.”

“Everybody calm down. This snowflake can’t do any of the things that you asked, and why would you think you could put a harness around it? One, it would be way too small to get energy from and two, snowflakes can’t even fly. And it would be too small to wear a harness. Anyways…I was going to teach him about months and days and he is teaching me about his past life.”

“He doesn’t know what months and days are? I’m not the smartest animal in the bed, but even I know daaaaat.” said Gordon.

The snowflake said, “What was that hideous word that you just used?”

Gordon replied, “It’s a common word now.”

“Not only do you make offensive comments but you also have a terrible vocabulary and you are terrible at grammar!” exclaimed the snowflake.

Charles intercepted this conversation and said, “We should probably get back on track before you melt Mr. Snowflake.

The snowflake went “huuuff! Why do you expect me to give you the reward of the knowledge of what happened in my past life if you keep on insulting me?”

Charles mumbled under his breath to Bob and Gorgon, “this calls for some reverse psychology.”

Out loud he said, “Ok Mr. Snowflake. If you don’t want to talk to us anymore, we’ll go inside and have hot chocolate.”

Mr. Snowflake explained in a rush, “Oh no, please, actually, I changed my mind! But first, please, tell me about days and months.”

Days and Months

Charles had the snowflake nestled on a blanket of ice and Bob, Gordon and he sat on a picnic blanket in the winter-surrounded suburb. It was lunchtime and there was a bowl of leftover pizza on the picnic blanket. There were four cups and a little leaf-shaped into a bowl. All of the bowls filled with hum.

Charles began, “A day is made up of 24 hours. An hour is made up of 60 minutes. A minute is made up of 60 seconds. And a second goes by like (one second later) —- that was a second!

Then, people also have something called ‘a routine.’ And a routine is when somebody repeats a certain sequence of events a bunch of times. For example, on Monday (one of the days of the week), you brush your teeth at night when the sky goes all black. Then, they do that for a bunch of days. And that’s considered a routine. Something that stays consistent in your life.

The snowflake replied, “Is that all to time?”

Charles put on his thinking face. Hmmm… “well, do you know what a year, a decade, a century and a millennium are?”

“Let me guess, a millennium is a million years, a century is a thousand years, and a decade is ten years and a year is a year.”

Charles thought a moment and said, “Ok yes, you’re right, 10 years in a decade. But a century is 100 years! And a millennium is only a thousand years! And now it all fits! And no, I don’t know what 1 million years is called, or more.” 

The snowflake asked again, “Is that all there is to time?”

“I forgot to tell you about months.” Charles said.  “There are 12 months in a year. And there are about 30 days in a month.”

Gordon asked impatiently, “so when are you going to tell us the story of your life?”

“Yeah,” Bob interrupted, “we want to hear a story! But not too far back. And please summarize.”

The snowflake looked like it had just run a marathon. There were little, tiny, wet droplets falling off of him. The snowflake said, “Sure, I think we have time for another story. Let me tell you about the time when I was in the largest hurricane. One day I was floating about in the sea when an obscure tropical storm happened. Later, it would get the name Dorian. I was sucked up into the sky out of the ocean and spun around in very high winds and flung around. I could have said hi to one water droplet and never seen that droplet again. It was so loud that it was deafening to the ear. Occasionally, I spotted a few airplanes flying about and assessing the threat level of the storm. Fortunately, none of them hit me. Eventually, I was flung out of the hurricane and hurled toward the sea again. I evaporated before I hit the water.”
“When was this?” asked Gordon.

The snowflake replied, “I’m not sure. I think…just a couple of seconds ago.”

“I think you’re getting your time mixed up,” said Charles. Just then, we saw three enormous newcomers coming over the hill. Flumph. Flumph. Flump. Two of the enormous newcomers flumped and the third floated.

“Hello, my name is Felix” said the floater.

“Hello, my name is Rocky,” said the smallest of the flumpers.

“And my name,” boomed the largest newcomer, “is Devin. D-E-V-I-N.”

“What brings you here?” said Bob.

“We want to be part of the  Squoishimellow Squad,” Rocky replied.

“It’s spelled,” boomed Devin, “S-Q-U-O-I-S-H-I-M-E-A-I-L-L-O-W.”

“We’re the Squoishimellow Squad,” said Gordon. “I’m the founder.”

“Nice to meet you, Founder,” said Felix. “No, my name is Gordon. I founded—you know, started—the Squad.”

“And my name is Charles,” said Charles. “And this is Bob. We’re talking to an Intergalactic snowflake that’s telling us its stories of hurricane Dorian right now. And we taught him the concept of time on a human scale.”

“Wow, you seem to be really philosophical,” said Felix. “Is that a word?” he asked.      

“Getting back to me, that is the end of the story,” the snowflake panted.

“Hey,” said Devin, “Your little friend looks like he’s just run about fifty marathons. Is that normal for him to be sweating that much?”

“Hey, how are you doing,” Charles asked the snowflake. “Is it normal for you to sweat that much?”
“Snowflakes don’t sweat!” the snowflakes said incredulously. “They melt and evaporate.”

“Oh…..” said Gordon. “So, what’s happening to you right now?”
“I’m melting and evaporating,” said the snowflake with irritation in his voice. “Didn’t I just tell you that?”

“No, you just said that snowflakes don’t sweat,” replied Gordon. “You didn’t tell us you were melting and evaporating—well, until now.”

“Ugh,” said the snowflake.

“So,” said Charles. “How many more stories can you tell us before you melt?”

“I don’t think I can tell any more full stories,” said the snowflake, who was rapidly becoming just a puddle.

“Do you want to drink some more Umm?” asked Bob. “Maybe that can slow down the evaporation process.”
“No thanks,” said the snowflake. “I’m almost fully evap—.” And with that, he evaporated.

“By!” said Bob, Gordon, Charles, Felix, Rocky, and Devin in unison. 

By the Squoishomellow Squad

Felix, Charles, Bob, Gordon, Devin and Rocky make up the Squoishomellow squad. They are Squoishomellows that enjoy flying around on Felix’s back. Felix is a giant blue shark. Bob is a turquoise octopus. Charles is a dark blue bear. Last but kind of least and kind of not, Gordon is a small grey shark. The Squoishomellow pledge is to be nice to everyone you meet!