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The Cold: Part 4

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 4

After breakfast with Mom, I go upstairs.  It’s only 6:30, but I can’t wait any more.  I turn on my computer and desk lamp.  My desk faces the window, and I look outside at the dark winter morning.  A thin pink ribbon of light stretches behind the mountains.  It will be a beautiful sunrise soon.

Where should I begin?  A journalist finds the best information from many different people, so I decide to look on different social networking sites to see who is writing about the bodies.

There are more social media posts than expected.

On just one site, hundreds of posts appear when I search “dead bodies found outside.”  It seems that on the Internet, people are using the name #icebodies.  I enter #icebodies into the search bar, and thousands of posts appear.

Many posts are not interesting.

@yuki925:  OMG!  This is crazy!  What’s happening?!?!?!

@chessman:  thanks #icebodies for this lockdown!!  no work for a week!!!!!!

I read the posts for one hour.  I begin to see a pattern.  About half of the people are scared of the ice bodies, and about half of the people do not believe the ice bodies.  Many people have strong ideas and opinions.

@kycm71524:  The ice bodies must be prisoners from jail.  The jails did not want to pay for the prisoners, so they killed the prisoners.  Wake up, America!  Our jails are evil. 

@aaa888:  The ice bodies are not real.  The news is boring, so journalists made a fake story.  They want to get famous.

@yestolove:  people are dying because they are sad… their hearts are cold, so their bodies are cold…  we need more kindness!!!

@jimmywilder1980:  I never saw an ice body.  They are NOT real.  Let’s go back to work.

There are so many ideas.  Many stupid ideas, too.  I count the “believe” posts and the “don’t believe” posts.  It takes four hours, but I finish.

There are 3,862 “believe” posts.  Most of the “believe” posts are not interesting.  They only say, “I’m scared!” or “Why did these people die?”  About 25% of the “believe” posts have ideas about why the ice bodies appeared.  Most of the reasons are about disease.  People think that there is a new disease like COVID-19.  Some of the reasons are about the government.  People think that the president wants to kill these people.  Or another country is trying to kill Americans.

There are 433 “don’t believe” posts.  Most of the “don’t believe” posts don’t have a reason.  Some of the “don’t believe” posts say that the ice bodies are fake images from the government, from the news, or from other countries.  Interesting.  The government and other countries are reasons for both “believe” and for “don’t believe” posts.

Finally, there are only 17 posts from people who saw the ice bodies.  I want to send a message to these people.  Their stories are the most important.

@april.may:  Do NOT go near Parker Street today.  There are two ice bodies there.  I called the police, and the police were scared too.  Stay safe.

Parker Street.  That’s the street where I saw the bodies.  Is @april.may the angry woman from that day?  I click on her username and send her a message.

Hello, my name is Ari Brooks.  I am a journalist.  I saw the ice bodies near Parker Street.  I was on the bus that day.  I want to write about the ice bodies for my job.  Could we talk about what you saw?  My phone number is 555-739-2080.  Please call me any time.

I sent a similar message to the other 16 people.  I hope they will reply soon.

It is 3:55.  I have to call Ms. Sato at 4:00.  She wants to talk with me about today’s work.

I realize that I am still in my pajamas.  I put on a white sweater and gray jacket, and I quickly brush my hair.  There is only one minute before the call, so I stay in my fuzzy snowman pajama pants and turn on my video camera.  Ms. Sato joins the video call right at 4:00.

Ms. Sato starts talking about work right away.  She does not have a “small talk” personality.  “So, what stories did you get today?”

I feel embarrassed.  I spent a lot of time reading the social media posts.  I didn’t talk to anyone.  I sent the messages at 3:30, so of course no one replied.

“Well…  I found a lot of interesting opinions on social media.”  I opened my notebook and began to read my data.  “I read 4,312 posts about the ice bodies.  3,862 of these people believe that the ice bodies are real.  433 of these—”

Ms. Sato sighs.  “Of course the ice bodies are real.  We are a news station.  We report real news.  We can’t write an article that says, ‘Maybe the ice bodies are real, but maybe they aren’t.’” 

Part 5>

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The Cold: Part 1

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 1

My heart is beating fast.

I wait alone in a room.  There are newspapers on the wall and a big leather sofa in the corner.

I sit on a small, uncomfortable chair by the door.

Waiting for that door to open.

“Ms. Ari Brooks?” a woman says while she opens the door with her cherry red nails.  “Mr. Jones… did not come to the office today.  Can you come back tomorrow for an interview?”  The receptionist stepped through the door.  She looks annoyed, but she politely smiles.

How can this happen to me again?

“Actually,” says the receptionist, “Many of our staff are not here today.  It’s January, so maybe they are sick or have the flu…”

“I understand,” I say.  “Please ask Mr. Jones to call me when he feels better.”  I try to smile, but I want to cry. 

I leave the newspaper office and get on the bus.  I want to buy a car, but I don’t have any money.  I am 22 years old, but I live with my parents.  I graduated from college with a degree in journalism, but I can’t find a job.

My sadness becomes anger.  Why didn’t Mr. Jones contact me to reschedule the interview?  Even if he is sick, he can still send a short email.

This is not the first time.  My interviewer last week did not come either.

People can be so rude.

The bus ride home is quiet.  The only other person on the bus is an elderly woman with a cowboy hat.  She gets on the bus at one stop and gets off at the next.

This newspaper company was my last interview appointment.  I applied to twenty companies, got rejected by eighteen, and got an interview for two.  Both interviewers had to “reschedule” for an unknown reason.  This one didn’t even come to the interview.

I look out the window of the bus.  In Clayton, there is a small city and a lot of farmland.  Cows stand close to each other in the field beside the highway.  It is hard to count them in the snow, and their black spots look like many watching eyes.

Screech!

The bus stops suddenly, and my black bag flies off the seat.  Many cars behind us honk their horns angrily.  A woman next to us rolls down her window and takes out her cell phone, recording a video of the bus driver and yelling horrible things.

The bus driver, a man with a large belly and a small gray moustache, does not respond to the woman.  He rushes down the bus steps and runs to the side of the road.

The bus driver is tapping something on the ground and shouting.  He calls for help and takes off his jacket, laying it over something I cannot see.

The angry woman from before runs over and begins to make a phone call.  She squats on the ground and covers her eyes while talking to the person on the phone.

I wonder if there was a car accident.  Is there a dead animal or a dead person on the side of the road?  The woman is crying now.  She hands her phone to the bus driver, who continues talking to the person on the phone. 

Thinking it is probably a person who died in some accident, I stand up and walk to the front of the bus to see what happened.

Most people do not want to see a dead body.  I don’t want to see it either.  But if I want to be a successful journalist, I need to get used to seeing terrible things sometimes.  It is our job to tell the world about these terrible things, hoping that the world can learn how to be more careful.

As I get closer to the front of the bus, I see a head of blond hair next to where the bus driver is standing.  A man, in his late forties.  His face is paler than his hair.  He looks like he was in the cold for a long time.  Did no one notice him until now?

I stand up on the bus seat to see more of the accident.  Was he riding a motorcycle?  Was there a helmet or a bike on the side of the road?

From his pale face, a pale neck appears.  Then pale shoulders.  Then a pale chest.  The rest is covered by the bus driver’s jacket.  Two blue-white feet stick straight out from the jacket.

This man died naked.

Sirens cry in the distance.  Soon, two police cars and an ambulance show up.  A police officer interviews the bus driver and the woman with the cell phone.  Another officer takes pictures of the body on a camera.  She calls to the other officer and points to a tree next to the road.

Among the tree roots that stretch out from the tree and disappear into the snow-covered ground, two legs appear from behind the tree.  Like the other body, the legs are naked, and they do not move.  Unlike the other body, both legs are dark purple.

Part 2>

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See the World: Part 3

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See the World (An Easy English Story): Part 3

Neil does not want the doctors to look at him.  He wants them to look at the patient or look at the machine.  The machine is working now, not Neil.

The computer works.  Neil looks at Sam.  Sam smiles under his mask.  Neil feels good when he sees Sam.  

Neil’s real name is Alexander MacNeil, but on his first day of work, Sam called him Neil.  Sam said that Neil’s real name was too long.  Sam also asked Neil to call him “Sam.”  Sam never told Neil his last name.  When Neil met Sam, Neil thought that Sam was too casual.  Neil felt angry.  But after Neil worked with Sam for ten years, Neil liked his nickname.  He also liked Sam.  

Neil and Sam usually ate lunch in Sam’s car.  They listened to music while they ate their cafeteria sandwiches.   Neil was the best doctor at Johns Hopkins, and Sam was not a very good doctor.  But Neil felt happy around Sam.  Most doctors use very big words, but Sam talks to Neil like a friend.

Neil hears a sound.  His memory of meeting Sam finishes.  A message appears on Neil’s computer screen.  The message says:  “The computer found 100% of the HIV cells.  The computer will start genome editing.  The patient is safe.”  Neil turns off the machine.  He feels very happy!

Part 4>