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2/13
2/13
Gauss Anne
Worlby shuffled her moccasin-clad feet down Alphus’s front path. She led him by
the hand; she had to wrench her arm up and behind her because she was so much
shorter than him.
“Alphus,”
Gauss Anne was saying, “the level of snow provides a very perplexing problem.
I’ve been studying the rate of snowfall, and it has at least definitely
existed. The rates themselves, though, have varied enough to give me difficulty
in nailing down a good predicting average, but they have definitely been both
non-zero and positive. That may not seem like much, Alphus, but this is
science!”
Alphus may
or may not have been listening.
“There
hasn’t been a day of sunshine or one above freezing in 23 years. The divergence
of the snow rate is non-zero meaning that, somehow, there is a sink. The snow
does not appear to be conserved. But it has to be conserved! There are other
forces at work, Alphus!”
She’s holding my hand? Alphus thought. He
fell through many parts of the snow that Gauss Anne could slide across. His
body lurched forward every once in a while where the toe of his boot dug into
the snow and his shin hit the side of the new hole.
“Batsmitan
Desert Mud Frogs survive long periods of drought by burrowing deep underground
and hibernating. When the rains come, all of a sudden the ponds are full of
frogs like they appeared ex nihilo. I
am beginning to believe that something like that is happening here. Perhaps
some long dormant animal is reemerging from the time when there were glaciers
and plenty of ice. This animal must live under the snow, feeding on the frozen
moisture. Something must be consuming the snow or else it would be thirty feet
above our heads.”
“Where are
we going, Gauss Anne?”
“The
amazing thing is that these snow-eaters must do so at the exact same rate that
the snow falls. As I said earlier, my tests show that the snowfall rate varies
dramatically from one snowflake per square meter per second on average to about
fifty. How is it possible that the consumption rates, the number of
individuals, and the birth and death rates all combine to produce a drainage of
snow exactly equal to what’s being added? Never before have I observed an
animal so keenly aware of its environment. So keenly aware…. It’s almost as if
their behavior has some predictive qualities. I am afraid it’s rather
unprecedented in science and because I am without even preliminary findings,
I’m sticking my neck out, here, just saying this – but the possibility is just
too tantalizing to resist! What would Dr. Livingstone think? Perhaps, Alphus.
Perhaps, the animal birth and death rates, their snow intake, and their number determine
the snow fall rather than being dictated by it.”
They had
walked to the end of Alphus’s path and down the street half way to the corner.
Then Gauss Anne let go of his hand and took off as fast as her short legs could
carry her. Her hair stayed perfectly still as it always did even though she was
shuffling at top speed.
Alphus
stood in the road, once again at a loss upon Gauss Anne’s departure. When she
had stormed through the front door and grasped his hand to take him outside, he
did not even have time to grab his burgundy robe. He stood shivering in his white
T-shirt, blue sweat pants and boots. His tummy bulged over his waistband, and
the taut skin on his bald head looked severely out of place – foreign and
abandoned – being so exposed and so cold. Alphus held one of his arms in the
other.
I don’t know if I ever want to see her again,
he thought. Why does she do stuff like
this?
He trudged
back across the lawn and through the door that stood open. He had not realized
that he could be so easily taken from his home and exposed to the cold. Gauss Anne
had such a flora-like appearance that it seemed to Alphus that he was
vulnerable even to the trees.
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