Week Four Story: Snow Day Scare.

Snow Day Scare

On the first snow day of the year, Carter decided to take his dog, Bosco, out to play in the snow. The weather was absolutely beautiful with the snow falling like you would see in a Christmas movie. Carter’s mom was nervous to let Carter go play outside since it was his first snow day, so she made sure to warn Carter about how dangerous it was to walk on the ice over the pond. Carter said he wouldn’t, but he really didn’t pay attention to what his mom was saying, for he was so excited about getting out into the snow and playing with his neighborhood friends.

Once Carter got out side he could feel the blistering cold from the wind, but he had made sure he had put on plenty of layers. Bosco on the other hand was quite cold even though he was jumping in the snow like it too was his first time to play in it. As Carter got outside he met two of his neighborhood friends. The three and Bosco built a snowman, made snow angels, had a snow ball fight, and just as the group was getting tired one of the guys said, “I bet I can go out the farthest on the pond!”

The three lined up and the first two went out a little way on the ice, while Carter remained at the bank of the pond thinking about what his mom had said. As he was pondering, one of the guys yelled “What are you scared of? It’s perfectly fine.”

Carter didn’t want to seem like a chicken so with a rush of adrenaline he gave a slight jog and then did a slide motion right past the guys until CRACK!

This is an image of a hole in a ice filled pond which I found on Pixabay.

The ice broke and Carter went straight into the water. The boys didn’t know what to do so they gently walked back to the bank of the pond until they could run to get help. As this was going on Bosco decided he must save Carter. Bosco ran out onto the ice and barked at Carter, who was trying to hold himself up on the ice. Bosco then turned away from Carter and moved his tail in his face indicating that he wanted Carter to grab it.

As Carter grabbed the tail Bosco used all of his strength to maintain his balance, yet still pull Carter out of the pond. Finally, as the two boys had Carter’s mom coming, Bosco had given Carter enough momentum to pull himself out of the pond. He then carefully walked back with Bosco to the land and hugged his mother.

Although Carter was freezing and felt that the pain of falling and almost drowning was enough, he knew that his mother was going to be very upset with him. Although he was scared to be punished, he was just thankful that Bosco had saved him, and next time his mother warned him of something, he was sure he would listen.

Author's Note:

My story is very loosely based off the story of Sampati and Jatayu from the Ramayana. In this story, Sampati tells the story of when he was younger and him and Jatayu were flying and decided to race each other. Due to the race and heat of the son, Jatayu fainted and began to fall, so Sampati decided to spread his wings to help Jatayu. By doing so, the sun was so hot that when Sampati spread his wings, the sun burned them up and he crashed. Overwhelmed by the pain and from the sadness of losing his wings, Sampati wished he would just die. Unfortunately death didn't come as he wished so he decided to visit Saint Nishakara whom he told about his story and his wish to die. Saint Nishakara convinced him to keep living and that one day his wings would grow back. Well one day Sampati had Simians take him to the burial site of his deceased brother, and due to Sampati cleansing himself in waters on this trip, he began to grow wings just as he had had when he was young. Although my story varies a good amount from this tale, I wanted to make my story about ignoring signs of danger. Just as the birds should have realized it was too hot to perform such physical action, Carter should have realized the ice wasn't strong enough just as his mother had warned him about. The idea of my story truly was inspired by the story of Icarus from Greek Mythology, as in that story flying too close to the son also hinders him just as the birds. I wanted to teach a lesson of listening though, because even though Sampati listened to Saint Nishakara and things worked out, I wanted to change the outcome to resemble when things don't workout when one ignores warnings.

Bibliography:

Sampati and Jatayu comes from  The Iliad of the East: The Ramayana, by Frederika Richardson Macdonald (1870). [800 words] This is another section from Macdonald's vivid and detailed retelling of key scenes from Valmiki's Ramayana.