“SNOWFLAKE WATCH” flashes on the screen next to her, a rhythmic pace that helps break up the moments of staring at the sky.
I wonder if there’s a radar that can pinpoint exactly when flakes start falling. She takes a note. She’ll have to interpret the scrawl later. Never looks at the pen and page, precision comes later, otherwise the thought could break before it gets all out. Small price to pay for possible genius.
No such thing as boring or mindless work for her. Objectively, this is the least boring thing ever. Getting to collect snowflakes in a thing that only three other people have ever touched. Maybe only a hundred people know about. Need it today. No snowflake will last on the warm ground. If she blinked, she could have missed the first few.
Standing on the surveyor’s mark, lining up the center right in between her boots, lifting the container above her head, elbows aligning with her ears. Precision now otherwise the GPS error will show up and someone can dismiss the work. Bastards. They’re always looking for the littlest things so they don’t have to consider something new. Aren’t scientists supposed to be open-minded? Yeah, but only if it’s for their own ideas, no one else’s.
Her colleagues who say the inside of the lab is like home are lying. Long steel tables, her view of the room obscured by shelves so tall she has to stand on her toes to reach the highest shelf. Overheard lighting on low, multiple lamps with exposed bulbs and movable heads anchored with clamps around the workstation. Smells of ozone - a tingly sensation in the nose from the air purifiers running on high. Makes a nice white noise if you like buzzing. No home feels or looks like this. If it does, you’re doing something wrong.
It’s also sub-zero freezing inside. Outdoor gear has to stay on. It’s nothing like like the way she keeps her apartment. Anything lower than 75 degrees and she’s layered in sweatshirts and socks.
Just need 20 minutes to observe, measure, and catalog the five flakes floating. I’ll be back in jammies and playing Diablo before lunch.
The microscope takes up a third of the table. The only way to accurately assess the snowflakes are to control the outside forces. No glass plates, snowflakes are held in place by the science magic of air and gravity. She scribbles a note, check with the patent office on status of application.
Snowflakes aren’t fully white like in TV shows. They are clear, with the occasional small dark flecks, soot marks or ill-formed clumped crystals that look white from a distance.
She focuses in on a white clump, always finding the ridge patterns soothing, like tracing lines in a sand garden.
Huh. She rubs her eye, blinks to clear away the floaters. Made the snowflake look like it was moving. She leans back to the eyepiece; still movement on the flake. Subtle, little ripples and jumps from multiple spots. She rubs again, looks again. Still there.
She moves another snowflake into view, zooms in on a white area. Nothing but the bumps and ridges from the tiny crystals. Shifts back to the moving one - something flashes back at her.
Little pinpricks all around her head. Her brain’s signal that there’s something here she needs to explore.
Grabs binoculars, put them between her and the microscope. A hack to get a closer view without hunting down a more powerful microscope. Plays with the focus of both until the surface comes into view.
It’s a world. It’s a world on a snowflake.
She reaches for the notebook and pen, watching the creatures as they move around, in and around each other. Not humanoid. No appendages, bodies are amorphous, not sure where one ends and the other begins until they move apart. They are covered in something like fur - if fur waves and moves independently like jellyfish tentacles. Fuzzy blobby TicTacs - Fuzblotic, that’s a good word for it. She repeats it like a mantra; she can’t lose the word to bad handwriting and short term memory.
They are all over the snowflake. It’s completely unrecognizable as a snowflake from this magnification. A mix of organic and sharp edges, a busy little world.
Pats her coat pockets, feeling for her phone to call her manager, report the finding. Needs someone to verify this, maybe three or four other people. A camera to record it. Photos or it didn’t happen.
Her eye catches the other snowflakes, still and calm.
Why don’t all snowflakes have this? How could a world live on something that’s created by the atmosphere when only the right conditions are met? How can it come out of nowhere? What happens to it after it lands?
She shivers in her down coat. The sudden switch from excitement to dread pulls all her heat from her limbs.
Is it ethical to keep it in the container forever? How many times have I released snowflakes or rinsed out the containers without a thought? If I release it outside, it’ll melt and the world will be lost.
A scientist’s job is to observe and document, not to feel. But I know now. I know there are things - new undiscovered things - living on the flake. Am I a killer? Am I arrogant enough to think that because they are small and unknown, they aren’t worthy of saving? Or is it arrogant to assume that saving them is the right thing to do, that it will be better in the long term for them?
She stares, frozen in indecision.
