CAMBRIDGE, MA - In the brief respite before the newest winter storm arrived in Cambridge, the surviving Harvard Campus Services personnel lined up in seven rows of snowplows and bulldozers for one final stand on Memorial Drive. There they stood, shivering in the cold as they watched the sun set underneath the dark cloud of the front barreling towards them. Some of them were afraid, but most of them were past the point of fear.
“Do you remember what a flower looks like?” one of them, a Lowell custodian named Carlos, asked the old man sitting next to him in the refitted pick-up truck. The old man took a puff of his pipe, his eyes peering into the distance. They were as grey as the clouds in the sky, as the snow in the ground.
“Can’t say that I do,” he responded, exhaling the stale tobacco smoke that he had been holding in. “I don’t remember flowers. I don’t remember grass. I don’t remember what birdsong sounds like. The snow’s covered this earth for too many moons for me to remember any of that.”
The sun disappeared over the horizon. In the darkness, a lone snowflake fell on the windshield.
“I reckon this is it, then, Jeremiah,” said Carlos.
“I reckon so.” Jeremiah had made peace with all that a long time ago.
“But I cannot accept that,” said Carlos. “This cannot be the end. We are survivors! Our ancestors came across the frigid oceans, overcoming the tempests. They battled great beasts. They vanquished their foes. We are their children! We shall not fail!” Carlos grabbed a megaphone and stepped out of the truck. “Brethren!” he cried. “A day may come when we fall to the forces of nature, when we abandon all hope and lie vanquished in the snow. But it is not this day. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!”
As the wind picked up to a howl, the Campus Services survivors revved their engines. The headlights shone in the blizzard, as the last vehicles forged into the darkness.
