Frozen Future: A Science Fiction Story

“Tell us a story, Daddy,” said the daughter.

The father had just created a nice fire. He was sitting next to it with his son and daughter. They were inside their igloo. The father and son were taking a rest after a hard day of ice fishing out in the icy, frozen wilderness.

“Okay, I can tell you a story,” said the father. “But this may be the strangest story you will ever hear. It's a story I heard from your mother before she was eaten by the wolves. Sorry – I didn't mean to remind you of that sad day.”

“Is it a true story?” asked the son.

“I don't know,” said the father. “Maybe it's true and maybe it's not.”

“Tell it to us, Daddy,” said the daughter.

“All right, here goes,” said the father. “Once upon a time, many, many years ago, the world was a much different place. It was much warmer. It wasn't all filled with snow and ice like our world. The ground was covered with a pleasant green plant they called grass. And rather than being only a few very hardy trees in the world, there were beautiful trees all over the place. And there were giant pools of water, pools so big you could never swim across them even if you swam all day. You could go swimming for hours without freezing to death.”

“So it was kind of like a paradise?” asked the son.

“Kind of,” said the father. “But it wasn't just natural beauty. There were many big tall buildings. They were many, many times bigger than our igloo. And the people had many of these strange things called machines. They were a little like one of those gizmos I carve out of bones, but much bigger, and much more complicated. You could go inside one of the machines, and the machine would take you from one place to another place.”

“That's pretty hard to believe – kind of like a fairy tale,” said the daughter.

“Well, somehow all of these big machines and big buildings produced a lot of smoke,” continued the father. “Just like the campfire in front of you is making smoke. For some reason all the smoke started to make the world a hotter place.”

“Why would that happen?' asked the daughter.

“I have no idea,” said the father. “Your mother explained it somehow, but I don't remember her explanation. It was something complicated.”

“But it must have been very good if the smoke made the world hotter,” said the son. “The warmer the world, the better.”

“Strangely enough, it actually became a problem,” said the father. “The world apparently became too hot.”

“Oh come on, Daddy – how could the world ever become too hot?” asked the daughter. She had known only an icy, frozen planet in the grip of a perpetual winter.

“Somehow it was a problem,” said the father. “Lots of animals started dying because the world had got too hot. And lots of the trees started catching on fire. So the people decided to do something to make the world a bit cooler.”

“What did they do?” asked the son.

“They tried to make some fancy machines that would make the world a little cooler,” said the father. “Your mother explained it, but I don't remember the details. What I do remember her telling me is that somehow it all backfired. Instead of becoming just a little bit cooler, the world started to become much colder – way too cold. All the beautiful green grass got covered up by ice and snow. The giant pools of water froze solid. And the big buildings got buried under huge sheets of ice.”

“What happened to all the people?” asked the daughter.

“Almost all of them died,” said the father. “But a few hardy people survived. And over many, many years the survivors started to adapt to the colder earth. They started to gradually grow fur all over their bodies, just like the fur on our bodies.”

“So that's why people like you and me have fur all over our bodies?” asked the daughter.

“Exactly,” said the father. “At least that's why according to the story. I don't know whether it's true. I just remember your Mom telling me the story before she died.”

The next morning the father and the son went out again to spend the day ice fishing, once again drilling a hole in a frozen pond.

“So who do you think was smarter, people like us or those weird people long ago who had those ugly bodies without any fur all over their faces?” asked the son.

“People like you and me!” answered the father. “Building an igloo and doing ice fishing on top of a frozen pond – something like that takes real smarts, a lot more than building some damn fool machines.”