Dr. Everwood Eats Shit on a Frozen Sidewalk - SCP Foundation

Every inch of the Earth was agleam, a vast expanse of prisms catching the sun and refracting it endlessly. The city was encased in crystal. Jay Everwood was going to fucking die.

They stood at the dormitory door and stared at the results of the previous night's meteorological activity. They had heard the freezing rain, had in fact been lulled to sleep by the sound of the heavy droplets on the roof and against the walls and the window panes, had found it made the cozy comfort of their bed just that little extra bit more cozily comfortable, and now they were paying for lapse into sentimental weakness.

They were bundled up tight. They were wearing two different toques. They were going to survive this, even if their dignity didn't. Because the conference was still on, they had every intention of making the GOI diplomacy keynote, and it was only an entire ICSUT campus away. No problem.

No problem.

They took one step out the door.

They fell.

Their boots had met a solid sheet of ice that might very well have covered the entire porch and concrete set of stairs leading down to the campus sidewalk, and they had slipped straightaway. They reached out with their only arm, and caught the stairway's central rail as they saw their rubber toes rise up over the horizon for an instant. The rail was slick and cold to the touch — also completely crystallized — and their mittens stuck to it, and they hung there awkwardly as they kicked at the steps to try and right themselves.

It didn't work.

But then, it didn't matter. They were already most of the way down. They let themselves sink the rest of the way, and when their back was on solid ground, they let go of the rail and sat up. Their ass was on the top step, their feet two steps down. They could shimmy down, if they didn't mind looking like a toddler or a pug, but what then? Was the sidewalk going to be much better? As far as their eyes could see, every surface carried the telltale sheen. Across the street, a woman in a parka made a single false move — and not even really all that false — and unintentionally performed a feat of acrobatics that would have impressed a Russian ballerina. Three men rushed to her aid, and two of them ended up on top of her. The third ended up in the road, slipping, sliding, refusing to fall over and risking being flattened in return. But there were no vehicles; apparently only the pedestrians were out of their minds today. That, at least, was a refreshing change.

"You would think," said a kindly voice from just behind Everwood, "that a school of thaumaturgy would have a way of clearing all this up."

Jay's chest heaved with panic as they saw who was speaking. An old man with a bushy white beard was inching down the steps beside them, at any moment about to break every bone in his ancient body. It wasn't anyone they knew, at least they didn't think so, but unless the guy was something more than human, he was considerably less than safe.

"It's thaumatology," they said.

"What's the difference?" The old man seized the railing, and for the moment, remained upright halfway down the stairs.

"Uh," said Jay. "I don't know. Hey, you gonna make it alright? I don't think it gets easier from here."

The old man smiled at them. "Are you offering aid, Dr. Everwood?"

Jay reached up, grabbed the railing, and clambered shakily to their feet. They could feel the soles sliding back and forth. "I guess we might have a better chance together," they said, "though you might be able to find a more stable partner."

The old man smiled, and extended his hand.

Jay paused. "How do you know my name?"

A friendly chuckle, and a twinkle in the eye. "I know everyone's name, doctor. I'm here for the conference."

They returned the chuckle, nervously. "You know, this is silly? But for a second, I thought you were going to say that you're Santa Claus."

The old man hollered with laughter, and for a moment Jay thought he was definitely about to wipe out and die right in front of them, on the stairs. But he kept his footing, if only barely, and wiped at the tears in his bleary eyes with one big red mitten. "I should be so lucky," he said, still laughing a little between each word. "I could certainly use a sleigh and team of reindeers, right this moment."

He reached out again.

This time, they accepted the hand. "Doctor?"

He laughed again, though not so ecstatically. "Just call me Rudy."

They made only hesitant progress at first, which gave Jay plenty of opportunities to observe the carnage overtaking the campus. They saw a man too tall and too burly to be baseline human take a flight of outdoor stairs in its entirety without even meaning to head down, sliding from step to step and protesting loudly as he fell and fell and fell, tier by inexorable tier. They saw someone whose labcoat was streaming out behind them like a cape as they skated — in sneakers — across the plaza, finally coming to a stop by bodily leaping into a snowbank. This would have been an excellent, painless plan if not for the fact that the snow was also coated in a thick layer of ice. Crunch. They watched two students, a man and a woman, clutching each other so tightly that in any other context it might have been pushing the bounds of public propriety as they almost fell, almost fell, almost fell their way down the sidewalk. They saw a woman do a header into a rose bush, and another woman trip over the first one's thrashing legs. The only thing stopping them from taking in even more of this miniature apocalypse was the fact that the higher they tilted their head the worse their balance became, and if their balance got any worse, both Everwood and Rudy were going down for the count.

Rudy, however, didn't seem to sense the danger. He nattered on and on about the briskness of the breeze, and the beauty of the crystals ensconscing every stick and twig, the icicles which poured from every eave and gutter, sometimes making it all the way from the roof to the lawn on some of the smaller buildings. He asked Everwood which seminars they were attending, and which they were presenting, and which of each they liked best, or were looking forward to most. After an evening alone in their assigned dorm, this had the effect of re-enthusing them about the day's academic prospects. There really was nothing like chatting with a fellow nerd to get the juices flowing. They could almost forget the taste of last night's hot chocolate, made with water instead of milk.

Almost.

They fell down twice. Once in such a tangle that neither of them really felt the blow, and to Everwood's relief, no damage at all was done. Once so slowly, so comically slow, that it was more like they drifted to the sidewalk than fell, as though they were snow themselves. Both times, it hurt more just to struggle back up. It wasn't so bad. It could have been worse.

"What plans do you have for the new year?" Rudy asked as they headed up the avenue's wide central stairs, Everwood feeling like they were about to attempt a summit of Everest. "Any exciting projects on the go?"

They would normally have been politely dismissive of the suggestion, talking down the possibilities, keeping their expectations low. But with every shimmy and shake, every near-miss, every slip and slide arrested by one or the other of them, Jay found themself honestly feeling more than a little alive. And so they said, instead: "I really think this is gonna be the year. Things are gonna work out. I've got a lot of stuff on the backburner, and I'm gonna move it to the front."

Rudy reached over with his free hand and clapped them on the shoulder. "Good for you! Good for you. Every year is a new chance to make yourself anew. Don't forget that."

"Yeah," they smiled, as someone passed them going the other way down the stairs, one step at a time, on their ass as Everwood had considered doing not fifteen minutes prior.

"Everything sleeps in winter, to some extent," the old man mused as the top of the stairs came in view, and the path to the hall where Everwood's lecture was being held. They hadn't thought to even ask Rudy where he was headed. "And then reborn in the thaw. You're not held to the standards of what came before. You can be something different. Greet old friends with a new attitude. It's transformative."

"Yeah." This was getting a bit philosophical, and they would have preferred Rudy focus more on putting one foot in front of the other. They were up the stairs now, and on the wide pavement again, and it was very wide indeed, like a cross between a skating rink and an airstrip. There was a man just lying in the middle of it, on his back, breathing but obviously either winded or wounded or in the process of just giving up. There was another man with both legs stuck in a boxwood on the verge. There was a woman clutching a lightpole for dear life. If she hadn't been wearing gloves, she would have been losing skin.

But Rudy seemed to have delivered his message, and the rest of the trip was nothing but a kinesiological puzzle: move the available limbs in the right way to get the torsos and heads to where they needed to be, without cracking them open on the hard glazed surfaces. They had time to glance up, very carefully, at the roofs which shone like planes of pure sunlight. They had time to laugh at the crowd, all holding hands, which successfully navigated the concourse in bulk with only maybe half its members properly upright at any time, the successes dragging the failures onward and keeping them off the paving stones. They even had time to feel the sweat under their winter clothes, the proof that this exercise really was exercise, and good exercise at that.

They were there.

Everwood turned to look at Rudy, and Rudy turned to look at them. They were standing at the main doors to Graf Hall — which were apparently locked, since there was a crowd milling about on the stoop, waiting to be let in and trying to remain upright for just a few more precious, precarious minutes. Everwood recognized members of their group, and one of the keynote speakers. They would have waved, but they were still clutching the old man who was their steady, reliable anchor.

They stepped off the plaza, trading cobbles for concrete at last.

"It has been a pleasure reincarnating with you, Dr. Everwood," Rudy smiled at them. "And it is so good to see you've bundled up tighter this year. You looked awfully chilly in the snow, last time. Keep taking better care of yourself, and we'll meet again when it next comes around."

"What?" Everwood felt their fingers going cold in the old man's grip. "What did you just say?"

"I believe I said," and the twinkle in his eye now was far too bright to be real, "the true meaning of Christmas."

And then he exploded.

And that was how Dr. Everwood provided an object lesson for the GOI diplomacy keynote, which they were unfortunately unable to attend, on account of having gone ass up over, head past heels, laying an egg and eating glorious shit on the sidewalk in front of God and everybody.