A White Blanket of Lies

Reporter Anna Breadley finds herself mired in the bewildering bureaucratic quagmire of Ponderosa Creek, where a government-funded 'Snow-Shield Project' appears to be generating more winter than it prevents, forcing her to confront a chilling paradox and the unsettling apathy of the locals.

The zipper finally gave, a grudging, metallic shriek that echoed faintly in the vast, still whiteness. Anna Breadley, or Bea as her editor insisted she be called in the byline, tugged the collar higher, burying her chin deeper into the synthetic fur trim. Her breath, a visible plume, hung briefly before dissolving into the air. This was Ponderosa Creek, twenty-two degrees below zero, and the alleged 'Snow-Shield Project' was, by all accounts, doing the exact opposite of what it promised.

She crunched another step through the thigh-deep snow, her borrowed boots squeaking. Each movement was an effort, a constant negotiation with the heavy, unyielding blanket. The 'Town Centre' sign, half-buried, was nothing more than a few crooked letters peering from a snowdrift that reached the eaves of the general store. Not a soul in sight, only the occasional skeletal branch, stripped bare, scratching at the leaden sky. Bea felt a familiar, cold dread begin to coil in her stomach, not just from the temperature.

Her contact, a local archivist named Ms. Tarrfield, had agreed to meet at the Ponderosa Public Library – a squat, concrete block that looked like it had been dropped by accident from a passing freighter. Bea pushed open the heavy, snow-laden door. A chime, oddly cheerful, announced her presence to a space that smelled of old paper and something like ozone, the kind of electric tang before a storm.

Ms. Tarrfield, a woman whose face was a roadmap of fine lines and whose hair, pulled back in a severe bun, seemed perpetually dusted with flour, looked up from a computer screen. She wore thick-rimmed spectacles and a cardigan the colour of weak tea. 'You made it,' she said, her voice flat, devoid of surprise or welcome. She didn't offer a hand, just gestured vaguely to a wobbly chair across a table piled high with what looked like municipal reports from the 1970s. 'Hard to get in, isn't it? Roads are something else this winter.'

Bea peeled off her gloves, her fingers stiff and numb. 'The reports said Ponderosa Creek was chosen for the 'Snow-Shield Project' because of its mild winters,' Bea stated, trying to keep her tone neutral. 'This doesn't feel very mild.'

Ms. Tarrfield made a sound that could have been a sniff or a chuckle. 'Reports,' she said, drawing out the word like a piece of taffy. She slid a thick, bound volume across the table. 'This is our historical climate data. You'll find it… instructive.'

Bea opened the book. It was filled with meticulous, handwritten entries. 'Average winter snowfall: 15 cm. Lowest temperature recorded: -5°C,' she read aloud, her voice trailing off. She looked out the window, where the Snow-Shield’s colossal dome-like structure, partially obscured by flurries, pulsed with an almost imperceptible, low thrum. 'And now?'

'Now,' Ms. Tarrfield said, her gaze fixed on the screen, 'we're pushing eight metres of accumulation. The lowest was… last Tuesday, I believe. Minus thirty-six. Before the wind chill.'

Bea stared, a pit forming in her gut. 'So the project… it's actively creating more snow?'

Ms. Tarrfield finally looked at her, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. 'The official line, Ms. Breadley, is that the project is 'recalibrating atmospheric moisture distribution'. It's ensuring 'equitable snow coverage' across the region to 'combat historical imbalances'.' Her tone was a perfect, deadpan imitation of bureaucratic jargon.

### A Bureaucrat's Ballet

The next morning, Bea found Professor Edmunds in a sterile, brightly lit office within the Snow-Shield facility, a temporary structure that hummed with unseen machinery. Edmunds was a man in his late fifties, impeccably dressed in a tweed jacket despite the indoor warmth. His spectacles sat perched on the end of his nose, giving him an air of distracted academic brilliance. He spoke in carefully measured tones, his answers as opaque as the whiteout conditions outside.

'Professor Edmunds,' Bea began, her recorder already running, 'the public was told the Snow-Shield Project would reduce the severity of Ponderosa Creek winters. Yet, we're seeing record snowfalls. Can you explain this discrepancy?'

Edmunds adjusted his glasses. 'Ms. Breadley, it's crucial to understand the nuanced complexities of climatic remediation. Our initial modelling predicated on a certain 'baseline atmospheric receptivity.' What we've encountered here is a rather… robust local micro-climate, shall we say. A unique atmospheric personality.' He paused, offering a faint, almost imperceptible smile. 'The Snow-Shield is, in essence, harmonising with this personality, not overriding it.'

Bea’s pen hovered over her notebook. 'Harmonising… by burying the town under ten feet of snow?'

Edmunds leaned back, a faint squeak from his chair. 'Think of it as an intensive, accelerated rebalancing. A temporary surfeit to ensure long-term, sustainable atmospheric equilibrium. We're observing fascinating data, Ms. Breadley. Truly, deeply fascinating.' He gestured vaguely at a monitor displaying a dizzying array of graphs and charts, none of which seemed to make any discernible sense to Bea.

She pressed on. 'What about the cost? Taxpayers are footing a bill that has quadrupled. And the local economy is collapsing; businesses are shut down. People can't get out.'

'Ah, the economic externalities,' Edmunds nodded sagely. 'A regrettable, albeit anticipated, byproduct of such ambitious environmental recalibration. But consider the long-term benefits: a revitalised winter sports industry, once the 'equitable distribution' phase concludes. Ponderosa Creek will be a pristine, snow-laden paradise. A winter wonderland, if you will, but scientifically managed.' He said 'scientifically managed' with the reverence usually reserved for religious texts.

Bea looked around the clinical office, the white walls, the hum that vibrated gently through the floor. It felt like a stage set for some absurdist play. 'And the hum? That low thrumming sound across town?'

Edmunds chuckled, a dry, papery sound. 'The hum? That, Ms. Breadley, is the sound of progress. The resonant frequency of innovation. Harmless, of course. A testament to the immense power being harnessed to achieve our objectives.' He gestured again at the indecipherable screen. 'Optimal operating metrics, you see.'

Bea felt a headache beginning to form behind her eyes. Every question was met with a wall of jargon, a carefully constructed edifice of meaninglessness. She knew she wasn't getting a straight answer, but she also knew he wasn't lying in the traditional sense. He genuinely believed his own words, or at least, the words he was paid to believe. This was the kind of bureaucratic double-speak she'd read about, but never truly experienced in its full, frosty glory.

---

Back at the library, Ms. Tarrfield was cataloguing old photographs, her movements precise. The ozone smell was stronger here, the hum a faint vibration in the wooden floorboards. Bea pulled out her laptop, typing furiously, trying to make sense of Edmunds's verbal gymnastics.

'He's impossible,' Bea muttered, more to herself than to Ms. Tarrfield. 'He just… talks around everything.'

Ms. Tarrfield didn't look up. 'That's the point, isn't it? If you make the explanation complex enough, people stop asking.' She slid a photograph across the table. It was a black and white image of the town, decades ago, bathed in a soft, sparse winter light, barely any snow. People bundled, but not buried. The trees were visible.

'They all just accept it?' Bea asked, bewildered. 'The town is drowning in snow, and everyone just shrugs?'

Ms. Tarrfield finally met her gaze, her eyes surprisingly sharp. 'Acceptance can be a powerful thing, Ms. Breadley. Especially when you've been told it's for your own good. Or for the good of the planet.' She paused, then lowered her voice, a whisper barely audible over the distant thrum. 'Sometimes, people adapt to the absurd because the alternative… is just too cold to think about.'

Bea looked at the photograph, then out the window at the endless white, at the hum of the Snow-Shield structure. The snow was falling again, thick and heavy, each flake a tiny, perfect accusation. The town felt like it was holding its breath, waiting. For what, she couldn't say. But the hum, that relentless, low frequency, seemed to grow, not fade. It was a promise, or perhaps, a warning, vibrating through the very bones of the frozen earth, speaking of something vast and indifferent. The air grew heavier, colder, and Bea felt a shiver, deeper than the winter chill, creep up her spine.

Ms. Tarrfield’s fingers, gnarled with age, tapped lightly on the old photograph. 'Some things,' she said, her voice barely a murmur, 'once set in motion, can’t be easily stopped. Even when the ice starts to climb your window panes from the inside.'

Bea stared at the endless white outside, at the almost imperceptible tremor in the air, a deep, pervasive hum that seemed to be originating from the very core of the earth, not just the Snow-Shield. She watched a tiny, almost invisible crack begin to spiderweb across the library's thermal pane window, right above a drift of snow that was quickly becoming a permanent fixture. It wasn't the cold that caused it, she was sure of it. It was something else, something resonating, something slowly but surely, pulling everything apart.

The crack grew, silent and deliberate, mirroring a growing dread within her. The hum intensified, a deeper vibration in her teeth. It felt less like progress and more like a slow, inevitable unravelling. What if the 'Snow-Shield' wasn't just failing to stop the snow, but was actively creating something far more irreversible, far more insidious, something that was slowly freezing the very fabric of reality around Ponderosa Creek?