A stone the size of a bride’s diamond bestowed on her by a penny-pinching groom dislodged one day at the summit of Barbeau Peak, the highest mountain in the Canadian Arctic Circle, in its far northern territory of Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut. Had it shaken loose in Antarctica, it might have rolled just a few feet and, after losing the uphill battle, petered out; however, because it was just 550 miles from the North Pole, at the top of the world, the granite spheroid, prone to gravity, inclination, and speed, continued rolling down its slippery slope towards the equator. 189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaOXUTCRj4p
By the time the icy marble reached the mountain’s 8,583-foot base, its circumference measured eight feet; when it flattened Iqaluit, the capital city of 7,429 Inuits, it had amassed to thirty-five. Half the population had been steamrolled while sleeping through the six-month twilight, their flimsy shacks no match for the unhinged frozen ice ball, now impacted with bits and pieces of the indigenous human population. 189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqdmS9q15jn
Things snowballed from there.189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt8IaVADJi8
It slid across a frozen Arctic Ocean like a shuffleboard puck on sawdust, pinballing southward off Axel Heiberg, Elief Ringnes, McKenzie King, Prince Patrick, Eglington, Banks, Victoria, and King William Islands until rolling onto the North American mainland, leveling Kuggaruk, a hamlet of 1,033 Inuits, most of who joined their Far North Inuit brothers and sisters smashed into the marauding slush ball as it plinkko’d down into Manitoba. 189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY0gNQCS20y
Now it measured 300 feet across, gaining girth with each downhill revolution, picking up more soggy permafrost and more pancaked Canadians in Bakers Lake, Tavani, Ennadai, Duck Lake Post, and Spirit Lake along the way. Now it grew a chilly, crooked smile as the now 500-foot killer snowball rolled across Ontario, through the city of Thunder Bay, leaving a pulverized supermarket stocked with freshly-pounded people tenderloins for the hungry ursine population that had lost most of its native territory to these two-legged grifters.189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfiTDX9CbwX
It seemed to display a weird sense of joy and mission as it zigged and zagged and caromed and dreideled down the country. By the time the mounties and military were called out, it was nearly to the US border. Trudeau answered who, what, where, when, and why the best he could, then told his constituents to chill, which is quite easy to do up there.189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSbCK17NqlE
Had America built a yuge wall with Canada, a la Game of Thrones,not an el pared like most of the idiots wanted, the now 800-foot snowball might have been stopped; instead, it kept up its destructive pace as it gouged through Minnesota, and down into Wisconsin, crushing Kenosha.189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDYiMAJtveT
At Milwaukee, the National Guard was called in, their flame-throwing weapons effective for a match, not for a forest fire; The air force’s bombs and missiles effective against blowing up humans, not against a rolling iceberg, now a thousand feet across. The navy’s torpedoes might be effective after the damned thing melts; until then—how do you melt the damned thing? 189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkLAdE2O3xZ
The giant orb of ice, compacted with detritus and dermis, rolled into Illinois steady and true, as might a gutter ball making its lazy trek down a bowling lane, on its downhill trundle to Chicago, pizza-doughing Waukegan, Winnema, Evenstan and other cities first before approaching the Windy City as an icy planetoid a half-mile round, ready to strike its downtown skyscrapers like a bowling ball slamming down all ten pins at once. 189Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrJOZZxBS5J
And then a miracle happened around Chitown–the sun came out in January!—and stayed out—blazing all through the months of February, March, April, May, June, and July, via the miracle of climate change. Yet, the dirty land comet was not yet done reeking havoc: it melted into Lake Michigan, flooding the city and causing 100,000 residents to drown. The original pebble atop Barbeau Peak fell to the lake’s muddy bottom. It was abominable.
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