We walked.

Susie handed out a cookie when we couldn’t stand it anymore.

We walked.

Susie handed out the last cookie.

We walked.

*   *   *

Calvin the abominable snowman, yeti for short, surveys his icy kingdom—

Me (to me): Stop it.

Man has driven him into the coldest wastelands—

Me (to me): Stop it, stop it.

His mate, smaller and weaker than him, has been pushed past her endurance. She’s a little on the toothy side, and has a tendency to bite, but when you’re an extinct race, you take your love where you can.

Me: Doing okay, Susie?

She shook her head.

Me: Let me carry you for a while.

She shook her head again.

Me: Yes, let me carry you for a while.

Susie: I’m too heavy.

Me: Argue not, mate, only obey.

She held out a hand to ward me off.

Susie: Who are you now?

Me: Yeti. We can do this, Susie. Think of it as a video game, and the snow and the cold are the enemy, and all we have to do is get to that next drift of snow, or that bump shaped like a fin, or step on twenty dents in the ice, and we get to the next level. Every level is a bit harder than the one before, but if you avoid trapdoors and keep moving around, you’re good. You’re sort of good.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to play.

Me: Susie, when we get to the other side of this lake, I’m going to buy you fried eggs and lots of white-bread toast slathered in real butter, with pancakes for dessert.

Susie: And a breakfast brownie.

It sounded like bre-fash bow-nee.

Me: There’s no such thing as a breakfast brownie.

Hobbes: There should be.

*   *   *

Spaceman Spiff looks out over the frozen wasteland of Planet Erie. It has been well named, he thinks wryly. He and his fellow astronaut are doomed, of course, stranded as they are on this cold ball of rock and ice, hurtling through the blackness of space. They have contacted the father ship. All hope is not lost. But did the captain get the message? Will he think it worth it to interrupt his own mission to rescue them? They will be declared heroes for the cause of space exploration, and people will speculate about how long it took them to die.

But Spiff doesn’t give up that easily. Eventually the father ship will come to this planet, and won’t the captain be surprised to find they have conquered the elements and survived against all odds. Spiff looks at his female sub-officer. She is a good astronaut—uncomplaining, forging ahead in the hopes of finding shelter. Wouldn’t the captain be surprised to find they had not only survived, but procreated—their firstborn the first citizen of Planet Erie …

Susie: Why are you looking at me like that?

Wye r oo lookin ah meh like tha?

Me: Oh, nothing.

Bill, I wanted to live, and most of all I wanted Susie to live, and that’s what I was thinking about when I heard the most horrible sound in the world: the sound of Susie crying.

Me: Susie?

Susie (sniff):

Me: Susie?

Susie: Are you kidding me?

Ah oo ki-ing me?

Susie: Where is the shore? We should be able to see the land by now. We’re going to die out here on this horrible lake!

Me: Well, the lake itself isn’t horrible—

Susie: Don’t you talk to me!

Me: I just—

Susie: Don’t! Don’t you talk to me ever again! I’m not speaking to you, you understand? Ever, ever again. That’s what you get for killing me.

Me: Susie, I’m not going to let you die.

Susie: Let me? Let me? I’ll tell you what, you don’t let me do anything. I don’t need your permission to do anything, including dying.

Me:

Susie (gasping a little):

Me: Is there a correct response to what you just said?

She stood still.

Susie: I can’t move now.

I put my arms around her.

Yeti’s mate laid her head on his shoulder and some primeval feeling he could not articulate filled his being. He would do this. He would get her to safety, to the civilization of man.

It was all his fault, after all.

All his fault all his fault all his fault—