The rose is a bright splash of red against the stark white of August snow. A recollection comes to me as I look at that flower, a quotation which seems appropriate now. "There was a writer named J. M. Barrie," I say by way of introduction. She looks up at me, pale blue eyes like her mother's. Eyes that will haunt me as long as I live, though I have good reason to believe that won't be much longer. Good reason as well to believe that it won't be much longer for any of us. "He's the man who wrote the original Peter Pan story," I tell her. "Over a hundred years ago now. And he once wrote - not in Peter Pan, but in something else - 'God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.'" Sophia frowns. "But it isn't December." "No," I agree. "It's not." But it might as well be. It's colder now than any December I can remember here in Arkansas. It's been cold now for long, for far too long. First all of the electronics died. No cell phones, no internet, no anything. Then the cold and snow and wicked winds came.
