That's Cold

I was buzzing. Finally, after entering contest after contest, for years, I had finally won. I wrote a short story for a winter themed contest about a little girl lost in the woods. With the help of a mysterious older child she finds her way home, and with an amazing tale to tell. It had been my most praised story to date. People called it haunting and touching, but it had never won anything until now.

I was in the driver’s seat of my beat up Toyota Corolla on my way to claim my prize. I tried not to wonder what it would be, probably a gift certificate, but wouldn’t it be amazing if it were a new car? As I said, I was trying not to wonder, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Whenever something grandeur would enter my mind, I would counteract it with something humble, something miniscule in comparison, but still worth the hour long trip I was taking.

The contest had declared all prizes must be received in person. I wasn’t sure why, but I suspected it was because people might claim never receiving a mailed prize. People could be really greedy.

My GPS announced that I had arrived at my destination as I pulled into an empty parking lot. I frowned. Technology had failed me. There was nothing here but fading white lines and a couple of porta-potties. Unless the latter was my prize, I couldn’t be in the right place.

I huffed, put the car in park, and took out the address I had scribbled on a blank piece of paper in my purse. I compared it with the address I had plugged into the GPS and was disappointed to see that they matched.

“Great,” I sighed. I was an hour away from home with the wrong address. How was this for my luck? Pressing my forehead to the steering wheel, I debated my next move. That was when I heard a truck horn blare. It startled me upright. Wide-eyed I watched the tractor trailer pull into the lot still tugging on his air horn. So, it appeared, to complete my failed adventure I was going to be killed by a psychotic truck driver.

“Congratulations, winner,” a male voice said over a loud speaker as the truck came to a stop. “Thank you for entering the Winter Writing Contest. Out of several hundred entries we picked yours!” the voice went on as the driver climbed down from the front seat and headed toward the rear of the truck. His eyes never moved in my direction, instead they only focused on his task at hand.

“Your prize has been appropriately selected to keep with our winter theme. Enjoy!”

I could hear the tracks roll up as the driver opened the rear door. The only sound to follow was soft static until the same male voice announced my congratulations again, and then continued the original spiel I had heard seconds earlier. It was a loop.

The driver waived me over from the back of the truck, then again when I hesitated. I was grabbing the small bottle of mace from my purse.
“This is a little unorthodox,” I said, slowly climbing out of my car.

“You aint seen nothing yet, lady.”

His response both confused and frightened me. He must have noticed because he held his hands up and backed away from the truck.

“I’m just a delivery boy,” he said and waited patiently a safe distance away.

As I neared the back of the truck I noticed smoke or steam wafting out of the box. What the hell was this? With no further patience, I whirled around to peer inside and felt my jaw go slack. It stood about five feet tall, porcelain white, with midnight eyes, and an orange nose. I was staring at Frosty himself.

“Is this a joke?” I managed to ask.

“That’s what I wondered my first couple trips for this company. To be honest, though, this is tame compared to some of the other things I dropped off. But, hey, at least he has a ribbon.” The trucker pointed to the blue first place button on the snowman’s rotund chest.

A few beats passed before the driver climbed up the ramp into the truck.

“What are you doing?” I asked alarmed.

“Getting your prize.”

“I’m not taking that.”

“You have to.”

“Like hell. What am I going to do with a snowman in the middle of September?”

He shrugged. “Once it leaves my truck, I don’t much care.”

He rolled the snowman down the ramp on a plastic plank with wheels, a slider.

“Wait, wait,” I protested but he did no such thing.

“Congratulations,” he said in a flat tone as he left the snowman in front of me.

I watched him climb back into his truck after closing up the rear and head back toward the street. He blared his horn one last time as he left me and my prize in the empty parking lot.

I looked at frosty, already melting, and wondered what the hell I was going to do. Moving my eyes off him I spotted the porta-potties again and arched a slender brow.
“Sorry my icy friend, but you won’t survive the trip back home,” I said then pushed him toward the porta-potties. He’d survive longer in there, I told myself as I pulled the ribbon from his chest. Then, as an afterthought, I ripped the carrot off his face. “This way you won’t smell a thing,” I promised and let the door fall shut. Tossing the carrot, I tacked the ribbon on my shirt and headed back to my car.

All the things I had imagined my prize to be, never once had a snowman come into play. It may not have been a good prize, but at least it gave me an idea for a story.

[WORD COUNT: 987] for

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The Writer's Cramp  (13+) Write the best story or poem in 24 hours or less and win 10K GPs! #333655 by Sophy