February 4th, 2010:

The two team members, half starved but hardly dehydrated in their reindeer skin survival suits, travel on through the hoary waste in the hoped direction of the international facility. It's been days since they last saw any of Marty's footprints after having him steal the batteries from the pack in the night. The sled dogs, including the favored "Southpaw", were eaten out of necessity and after they dropped from exhaustion into the white puff. Their carcasses were, afterward, pulled out and stretched and used for a makeshift shelter to keep the wind out. In the dark, surrounded by stinking ribs and matted, mottled fur, Donald looked at Virgil and expressed slight concern.

Eight hundred miles south, a twenty three year old post-graduate and former college football hero subversively breaks wind in public to either impress or shock his friend's girlfriend in a diner over lunch. He and all of the diner's patrons are oblivious to the dooms of the world as it spins in circles in space.

Donald checks his watch. In the blue fade, it reads 11:11, but stopped days ago. The moon rises over the snow and into the sky, and the team members press on.

***



February 5th, 2010:

In the oven next to the sink by the door under the window,
three hot dogs sit on a cookie tray,
sizzling.