The phrase, ‘When Hell freezes over,’ is one of the many idioms meant to signify that something is impossible. Similar to when salt blossoms or getting blood from a stone. Rebecca found that funny, given that the last layer of Hell, according to Dante’s Inferno, was a frozen lake. She’d never read history’s most prominent fanfiction but knew enough about it through cultural osmosis to understand that the bottom layer was reserved for traitors.
A perfect place for her father, whom she thought of little even in retrospect.
Rebecca used to know the impossible like a parasocial fan watching it from a livestream. Her life was on a set path directed by chains of guilt held by family obligation. Trained to be a fighter because that’s what her father was, she spent her years of development inside the gym with a punching bag as her most constant companion. A life that she despised to the point of disassociation, splitting her persona in the ring as just Becca. Rebecca didn’t break that girl’s jaw; Becca did. Rebecca didn’t go ten rounds in the cage; Becca did. Rebecca didn’t get a black eye from a misjudged feint, but she suffered it the morning after.
Rebecca was a pacifist. A pacifist who pined for love that was impossible. “Keep training,” her dad would tell her. “Once we bring in the big bucks, we’ll be on easy street.” As if he’d contributed more than absent coaching and deals for venues.
But that was the past. It’d been two years since her father left, and a year since she’d not woken up early out of habit. Two years of living with the two most wonderful women in her life. Amy, or Amethyst when she was in mistress mode, was her best friend and lover, who met her enthusiasm in equal measure and supported her darker days with a warm body and playful teasing. Some days were harder, like now, when she looked out the window of her passenger seat to the endless snow expanse of Michigan’s forests and countryside. Then there was Helga, her mistress’s mistress, who was old enough to be Rebecca's mother and shepherd’d her into adulthood like one. “You can stay as long as you like, but I’m not going to help you with schoolwork,” she’d said when taking Rebecca in after putting her father in the hospital. Months later, she was staying up late to help Rebecca study for community college.
“We really could be doing anything else,” Amethyst said with the sullen sigh of a teenage twenty-something. She fidgeted with the hat in her hands. A thick, handmade pink cap that her mother gave her. It helped protect the buzzed half of her head from the cold winds, but not enough for her liking.
“It’s a holiday, we’ve got time,” Helga said. Even in a car, the pig dressed like she was riding her bike, with blue jeans, a studded belt, and a thick leather jacket, maintained religiously. Amethyst’s mother, who Rebecca learned was younger than Helga by a few years, knitted Helga’s pink cap. Apparently, that age gap was a point of contention before Rebecca joined them, but since then, they’ve made peace with it.
“It’s just so…” Amy held her tongue. Rebecca knew she wanted to say it was dumb, lame, or just boring. A tourist trap that the locals hated unless they were the ones making money from it, and even then, the attitudes were mixed. Being from New York City, Rebecca could relate, if only slightly. It’d be like asking her to go to the New York Strip, a place she’d never visited and didn’t care to. But this was important to Rebecca, in more ways than one. She’d been waiting for heavy snowfall all year when she first heard of it.
“There!” Rebecca pointed to the sign. Helga veered off the road to park. Rebecca kicked herself out of the backseat. The lack of immediate wind made the winter chill almost pleasant, backed by the blanket of snow stretching for miles around them. Thick layers piled upon tree branches, with the skeletons of bushes standing in defiance against the season. She made her way to the green sign she saw, the one with a white outline and an arrow pointing to the town name in question. With snow crunching underfoot, Rebecca pulled her purple hand-knit cap down. Her nose shivered as the wind-chill battered her nosering.
It was good snow. Not too wet, not too loose. Rebecca balled a snowball in her mittens and turned around with a wide smile when she stood under the sign. “Hey, Amy!” She raised her snowball proudly. “A snowball’s chance!”
Amy, who pulled her phone out to take the picture, dropped her focus to look at Rebecca. “What?”
“A snowball’s chance!” Rebecca repeated.
The vole’s ears furled in confusion. “What’s she talking about?”
Helga chuckled and shook her head the way one did when no one else noticed the obvious. “Love, look at the sign.”
***
I wasn't planning on making a blurb for this. But after getting the commission today and figuring I didn't want to write erotica, I decided to do a small character blurb. Though I must thank
Saw the snow. Saw the sign. Immediately went "ah, Hell, Michigan." Went by there a few times when I was a kid camping with my grandparents. Nice little blurb for the pic as well.
Saw the snow. Saw the sign. Immediately went "ah, Hell, Michigan." Went by there a few times when I
