Flash Fiction: What Happened During the Ice Storm

What Happened During the Ice Storm
By: Jim Heynen
This story is mainly about a very bad ice storm, and these boys are going out to find pheasants, who were in the cold outside and slowly dying. Most of the livestock had been put in the barn, but not the birds, and therefore they were freezing slowly.The boys saw this and felt helpless and sad for the birds. The boys were conflicted on what to do, but they couldn't just stare at them and watch them freeze to death. One boy had the idea to rap the coat around the pheasant to help them stay warm. This seemed to work and the rest of the boy did the same to the rest of the pheasants. Once the boys had done that they started to feel cold, and felt the icy rain on their shirts. They decided to leave and go home, and left the pheasants with the warm coats for the night.

This short story gives the emotion of sadness for the pheasants, but kindness for the boys who helped the birds. The setting also makes you feel sad and gloomy. The message tell us to be kind to others, even animals can appreciate someone's kindness. The boy giving the pheasant his coat was a real story changer, because you would expect the boys to just walk away or maybe even kill them, but they helped them survive through the storm.

This story kind of reminded me of a real life situation. If the pheasants are "nerds" or the uncool kids in school, and the boys are the popular ones, who don't really care about them. They see the nerds being picked on and bullied, or in this case the pheasants who are freezing to death. You would expect the boys just to keep walking on by, in both cases, but they do stop and help them. They tell the bullies to stop picking on the nerds, and they help the nerds become safe. On the other hand they rap the pheasants in their coats, and help save their lives from the cold storm. This is kind-of how I thought about this story in real life.