There are only two others on the caretaking team I supervise: Gibbs and Cline, each I’d estimate about ten years my junior. The thing we take care of is a sprawling building called the Northern Institute, located in a remote region where the snow never melts. I cannot say exactly where. I fell asleep just ten minutes into the helicopter trip here several months ago, and when I awoke shortly before our arrival, all I could see was an endless expanse of white. The Northern Institute had, for a long time, been a lively research facility. Now, having been stripped of its research budget, it is merely a facility. When research halted and the researchers were evacuated, Kay crunched the numbers and deemed it cheaper to hire a small team to look after things than to make the anticipated repairs were the building simply left vacant until research could resume.
And so here we are, the three of us, in my office, drinking coffee, preparing for Friday’s work. Outside, a harsh gust howls across the snow’s surface.
“Windy out there,” I say. “Even worse last night.”
Cline does not respond, but instead looks out the window.
“I come from a windy place,” Gibbs says, “so I’m fairly used to wind. But yes, it was very windy.”
I leave a moment for Cline to contribute to the conversation, but he continues gazing out the window, his eyes thinning to a squint.
“It was whipping so intensely against the walls,” I say to Gibbs, “I barely got to sleep.”
Gibbs’s grip on her coffee mug tightens just slightly. “If you’re too tired, and need the rest, I’d be happy to oversee things. For the day, at least.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say. “I’m not tired.”
“But you said you barely slept.”
“I said I barely got to sleep,” I say. “Once I did, I slept quite well.” Which is not true. I slept terribly, but I will not admit as much, definitely not to Gibbs.
Something to know: It is not required that I, as supervisor, make my office available for coffee and light socialization each weekday morning before work begins. This I do of my own volition, in the spirit of generosity. But Gibbs and Cline don’t seem to realize this. Perhaps, if I’d wanted recognition, I should not have opened my office for coffee and light socialization on our first day here. Perhaps I should’ve waited a week or two and then said, “Hey, how about I open my office each morning for some coffee and light socialization?” Or maybe just “Hey, how about I open my office each morning for some coffee?” as the outright mention of light socialization might create an atmosphere that is neither light nor particularly social. At any rate, whether I made overt my desire for there to be light socialization is immaterial. The point is, had I waited, the other two might have known a world without coffee and light socialization to look forward to each morning, and then they might see my commitment to going above and beyond and appreciate me more. But I do not feel appreciated. I feel taken for granted and often disrespected, and also powerless to correct matters, as voicing one’s desire to be respected and not to be taken for granted is much like voicing one’s desire for light socialization—antithetical to achieving the stated goal.
This is the burden under which I must supervise, a burden I am sure Gibbs could not handle, though she thinks she could. She has never stated as much, only inquired about potential for advancement, but given that our ranks here are two-tiered—there is me, the supervisor, and them, the supervised—I understand the subtext. That is why, the few days that Cline could not come down to work—claiming, each time, to be suffering from discomfort in an area of his body he’d prefer not to discuss, an amazingly simple and yet airtight excuse—leaving just Gibbs and me to the task at hand, I made a point to supervise her more vociferously.
Lest I be accused of playing favorites, I also supervised Cline more vociferously when an unnamed feminine issue (another strikingly simple yet foolproof out) caused Gibbs to spend three workdays in her quarters. This, however, is not due to some perceived threat. No, Cline simply requires more vociferous supervision, as Cline is easily distracted, unintelligent, and requires extra motivation just to meet base levels of productivity. And yet, despite these shortcomings, it is Cline and not either supervisor—the current (me) or the hopeful (Gibbs)—who first sees the thing in the snow. Or perhaps it is not strange at all that Cline would be drawn to the window, away from the light socialization, which, light as it may be, and voluntary, is work of a sort.
“Hey,” he says, motioning with his mug, “is there something out there? In the snow?”
Gibbs and I discontinue our conversation, each of us grateful for its end, and step over to stand on either side of Cline. The landscape outside is entirely white. A rolling line is the only horizon, separating the white of the snow from the gray of the clouds that forever stifle the sun. But Cline is right. Out beyond the window, something dark glints in the little light that makes it through. There is a thing in the snow.
Our task for the week has been opening and closing the doors.
Kay has asked that we open and close all doors and note if there are any whose mechanisms produce a volume that exceeds “what one would expect.” A loud knob or hinge might indicate necessary repairs or replacements that will be added to our task list in the upcoming weeks, once the necessary tools and parts can be gathered and sent our way. We might finish quicker with a divide-and-conquer approach, but Kay made it clear during our onboarding that all tasks are to be completed as a group. I appreciate this, as it allows me to more actively supervise, and ensures a more thorough assessment, since each of us likely has a different idea of what constitutes appropriate door volume. So far, our committee has found no problematically loud doors, although a few have inspired some interesting discussions regarding what constitutes a “creak.”
We pick up where we left off the day before, on the fifth floor.
“How did that one sound?” I ask.
“It sounded good to me,” Cline says. “Like a door sounds. I didn’t hear anything wrong with it. And I was trying to.”
I give Cline an approving nod, pleased with how much he’s taken to heart my lecture from earlier this week on the difference between not hearing and not listening.
“Gibbs?” I say.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted,” Gibbs says.
“It’s okay,” I say, “let me open it again.”
“By the thing in the snow,” Gibbs says, before I can put hand to knob.
“We really need to be focusing on the doors here, if we want to finish in time for me to fill out the paperwork,” I say.
“I could fill it out,” Gibbs says.
“It’s not about the paperwork,” I say. “It’s the part with the doors that takes time.”
“Fine,” she says.
I open the door again, and Gibbs says it sounds good to her. So we are in agreement: this door is okay.
We move on to the next door, but on our way there, Cline says, “What about now?”
“What about now?” I repeat.
“We could talk about the thing in the snow between doors.”
And he’s right. It’s possible and even a good idea, one I wish I had suggested. But I fear that this could backfire, as I sense the others are excited about this new development, and there is only so much time between doors. Still, I agree.
“Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking,” Gibbs says. “You know how, this morning, I was telling you about the wind?”
“We were talking about the wind, yes,” I say.
“Well, as I said, I grew up in a windy place,” Gibbs goes on. “We’re talking very strong wind. Wind that could blow out a candle through a closed window.”
“Wouldn’t that be an issue with the window?” I say.
“What?” Gibbs says.
“If the wind blows through a window,” I say, “extinguishing a candle, wouldn’t that more likely be evidence of a window’s weakness than a wind’s strength?”
“It’s just a figure of speech,” Gibbs says.
“Oh,” I say.
“I’ve heard it,” Cline says, almost certainly lying.
“The point is, I grew up in a windy area,” Gibbs says. “So I’m well acquainted with the effects of the wind. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we saw the thing in the snow after a windy night.”
“Are you saying that the wind carried the thing in the snow, whatever it is, here?”
“That’s a possibility,” Gibbs says. “But then again, it was still windy this morning, when Cline saw the thing in the snow.”
“I noticed that,” Cline interjects. “That’s why I was looking out the window. I was thinking, ‘Wow, it’s windy out there.’ Windy enough to blow a candle out through a closed window, some would even say. I don’t mean these windows.” Cline looks at me as he says this. “These windows are very well constructed. Anyway, I was looking out, thinking, ‘I wonder if this wind had any effect on the landscape,’ something naturally of interest to a painter like me. Landscapes, I mean. Not wind. It’s hard to paint wind, unless there are leaves around. Anyway, so I was looking, and then I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s that thing? In the snow?’ It being an interruption of the landscape that I’ve come to expect, one that I’d like to paint, crazy as it might seem, you know, being just a bunch of white, et cetera. But maybe I could find a way to do it.”
“Would you like me to request some painting supplies,” I say, “when I fill out the paperwork for Kay this week?”
“No,” Cline says. “Not yet.”
“Getting back to the thing in the snow,” Gibbs says, “what I was saying is that, if it was windy this morning, and the thing in the snow clearly didn’t move, then maybe it didn’t blow in. Maybe it was uncovered. And the thing in the snow is actually the tip of something bigger.”
It is at this point that I realize my fears have come true. We have been standing in front of the next door for I don’t know how long. Without addressing Gibbs’s assertion—which, I will admit, checks out, and furthermore leaves me unsettled—I open the door and close it.
“Sounded like door noises to me,” Cline says.
“Same,” Gibbs says.
“Agreed,” I say. Another successfully assessed door of appropriate volume.
“So what should we do about it?” Gibbs says.
“The door?” I ask. “We don’t have to do anything with the doors that don’t make any concerning noises.”
“I meant the thing in the snow,” Gibbs says. “What should we do about it?”
The truth is, I don’t know. The obvious course of action would be to hike out and see for ourselves, but this is not possible. It’s too cold, and besides, we’re not permitted out on the snow. It has to do with the strange “snow sickness” the researchers often felt when they lowered themselves out of the third-story windows, even to do something so simple as smoke a cigarette. Some experienced mild light-headedness. Others were overtaken by a severe sense of disorientation that seemed to last a day for every half hour they spent on the frozen surface. Given the limited nature of our positions—as well as the circumstances that led to the research’s sudden halt, the nature of which Kay did not elucidate, not even in our one-on-one supervisorial training—it was deemed best to mark the out-of-doors off-limits, excluding the short trips onto the roof for loading and unloading.
Up ahead, the hallway intersects with another, and through the convergence passes a shadow. Cline stops. “Did anyone else see that?”
“It was just Gilroy,” I tell him. Then I call his name—“Gilroy!”—but of course he does not resurface or respond.
“Maybe he knows about the thing in the snow,” Gibbs offers.
“You can ask him,” I tell her. “Cline and I can handle the doors for a minute.”
It’s an offer I make only because I know she’ll decline, and when she does, I have to fight to keep from smiling.
“When we finish up, I’ll talk to him,” I say.
The others’ distaste for Gilroy is not unfounded. Condescending, pretentious, and often outright batty, he’s the kind of person who eschews empathy with such vigor that distaste is not just warranted, it is the correct evolutionary response, and anyone who might express a response otherwise would raise red flags about their own penchant for sociopathy.
Gilroy was here when we arrived. He is the last remaining researcher working at the Northern Institute. What he is researching he will not tell me or any of us directly. Instead, he speaks vaguely about how his work seeks to “predict the future of cold,” or “critically reevaluate the cold,” or “give name to aspects of the cold heretofore unspeakable.” I have no idea what that means, nor can I say how he conducts research, as the Northern Institute has been emptied of all research equipment. There remain chairs and tables but no machines or devices and very few containers of any kind. Gilroy requires no such things, apparently. He roams from room to room with a stack of loose papers and records his findings, whatever they may be.
Gilroy occupies two modes, both off-putting. Either you find him standing hunched over a table, engaged in his writing, in which case, he grows angry if you make any noise at all, let alone ask him even the simplest question, or, worse, you stumble upon him staring off at nothing, his eyes glassy. Like this, he is alarmingly forthcoming with his thoughts, all too willing to talk through the endless cold-obsessed turmoil that is his mind. Today, after we’re finished with the doors, Cline, Gibbs, and I find him in a room on the fifth floor and discover that he’s in the latter state. The other two wait outside as I make my approach.
“Gilroy,” I say, “we were wondering if you might be able to help us out. There’s something we’ve noticed, in the snow.”
“Something in the snow?” Gilroy says, his tone more attentive than I’ve heard before. “A person?”
“No,” I say. “An object.”
Just as quickly, Gilroy’s attention goes slack and returns to some far-off place. “Oh,” he says.
“And we thought you might know what it is,” I say, “seeing as you’ve been here so long.”
“No time for that,” Gilroy says. His hands are drawn close together. In his right, he holds a pen, which he taps absentmindedly on his left thumb. I recognize it as the same kind I keep in my desk, the supply of which seems to be forever depleting, but I do not mention this.
“All you’d need to do is look out a window,” I say.
“I’m in the middle of something,” Gilroy says. “A conundrum.”
“Well, I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ll let you get—”
But Gilroy cuts me off. “I thought it was snowing, so I went onto the roof in just my sweater and pants, but it was just some of the existing snow, blowing in the wind. At any rate, being out there, it seemed like a good idea to do a little exercise. For my research. So I stood very still until the coldness overtook me.”
“I was told by Kay not to go on the roof,” I say, “except when depositing files in the lockbox or unloading the tools and the provisions from the hutches.”
Gilroy waves his pen in a gesture of dismissal. “It’s a clearance-levels thing. What I was saying was, I stood there until the coldness overtook me, which this morning was quicker than usual, with the wind.”
“We were talking about the wind,” I say, “this morning, when we saw the thing in the snow.”
“But I’m not talking about the wind,” Gilroy says. “The wind is merely a vessel for the cold. It overtook me with greater ease than normal due to the wind, but it would’ve overtaken me regardless, no accomplices necessary.”
“All right,” I say. “Sure.”
“So I stood there until I was fully debilitated,” Gilroy goes on, “until I truly felt the cold’s power, at which point the mere steps it would take to return through the door back to the safety of the Institute’s limited comforts seemed like an insurmountable distance. And in this state, when I did not merely feel cold, but rather, when I was one with the cold—when I was perhaps more cold than man, you might say—I sought to write an account of my thoughts. But I couldn’t retrieve the notepad from my pocket. I couldn’t even grip my pen, for that matter. In fact, I dropped it, and it disappeared into the dusting of snow the wind had blown onto the roof.”
I point to the pen in his hand. “Looks like you found it, though.”
“This is a different pen,” Gilroy says. “The other pen is still out there. Or more likely, it blew away. Another victim of the cold. Just as I would have been, had I not managed to stumble back inside and regain a base level of functionality. Now I stand here, successfully holding this pen.” Gilroy holds out his pen in front of him. “And I am trying to put into words what it was like when I, mere hours ago, could not grip a pen. Only, any words I put to paper now will feel disingenuous, as they will be put to paper with a pen that I can not only hold, but also operate with great dexterity.”
“You could just do your best,” I say, hoping this will relieve him of whatever mental burden compels him to keep talking. Its effect is the opposite.
“It’s not a matter of effort,” Gilroy responds, adjusting his grip on the pen to a tight, angry squeeze. “It’s not a matter of trying to remember what it felt like to lose the ability to hold a pen. That would be like trying to tap into the memory of a stranger. I am not the man who lost the grip of his pen, now that I can hold a pen again, and I wasn’t that man in the moments leading up to when I dropped the pen. The second before the pen slipped from my fingers, I was myself. Then, as my grip relinquished, I turned into someone else. That’s what the cold does to us. That’s why we struggle to understand it. Because we are not ourselves when we are cold. The cold turns us all to imbeciles.”
“Imbeciles, ...
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