legends · 5 min read ·
Closed Due to Weather
A school-style closure alert warns of snow at nine, and the roll is called for people who died years ago.
**Ridgeway Technical College — Alert**
*The college is CLOSED today due to weather. Please do not travel in. Staff will be in touch.*
*Sent 05:42*
· · ·
Heavy snow had been forecast for three nights and had not come. The radio said the roads were fine. I set my alarm for six because I had a shift at the hospital at seven, and in the dark I could see the streetlamps and no snow on the pavement at all.
At 05:42 my phone lit the ceiling.
*The college is CLOSED today due to weather.*
I checked the window. The road was dry. The sky over the rooftops was clear, and very faintly, at the edges, something like a scatter of white light, too even to be the moon.
I was not a student there. My sister Marcia taught evening classes at Ridgeway, and her partner Marcus worked in the library. I only got the alerts because she had put me on the emergency list years ago and never taken me off.
I texted her. She answered at once, in capitals.
*MARCUS IS SAYING THE COLLEGE IS OPEN. HE SAYS HE SAW THE LECTURERS GOING IN. I DON'T BELIEVE HIM. IS THE ALERT REAL?*
I looked at the alert again. It had come from the college's official number, and the number was right, and under the text there was a second line I had missed, in a smaller font.
*Please stay at home. Snow arrives at 09:00.*
· · ·
**Weather radar log, Ridgeway Met Station, same morning**
*05:50: No precipitation within 80 km.*
*06:10: Precipitation returns detected. Source: none. Radar shows a dense band of returns over Ridgeway Park, stationary, approximately 0.5 km in diameter.*
*06:30: Band has not moved. Temperature at ground level: 4°C. No accumulation recorded. Forecaster notes the returns are highly regular, spaced at close intervals, like the lines of a page.*
*07:00: Band has begun to move. Direction: toward the college.*
· · ·
I drove to Marcia's before my shift. I didn't want to. It was the only thing I could think of that felt like a choice. Marcus was waiting at the front door in his coat, with his work bag on, and when I asked him why he hadn't gone in, he said the lecturers were inside and had told him to hold off for the snow.
"There's no snow," I said.
"Not yet," said Marcus. "It's coming at nine. The alert says."
Marcia stood in the hall behind him, her hand on the banister. She was not looking at me. She was counting the people on the landing above, under her breath, the way you do when you are checking a class register. Then she stopped, and started again, and her mouth moved very slowly on a number I didn't catch.
"Four," she said. "There should be none."
I looked up and saw there were four people on the landing, in college lanyards, all standing very still, all facing the front door.
· · ·
**Message thread, Ridgeway staff group**
**Dana Okafor:** Has anyone else got a closure alert this morning? Mine says snow at nine.
**Ben Reyes:** Yes. Mine too. The road's bone dry.
**Priya Shah:** We're all getting the same alert. Same wording. Same time.
**Liz Carter:** I've just had another one. "Please stay at home. Snow has been seen."
**Dana Okafor:** I'm not staying home. I'm going in. I want to see what's going on in there.
**Ben Reyes:** Don't. A cleaner says the classroom windows are frosted on the inside. And the register is calling names from the cupboard.
**Priya Shah:** I can hear it too. Through the phone. Someone reading out the names one by one, very quietly.
**Liz Carter:** It's the list from the old building. The people who were off sick on the day of the fire. Their names were never taken off.
**Dana Okafor:** Liz, what fire?
**Liz Carter:** The one nobody talks about. Everyone who was in the building that day is still on the roll.
· · ·
**Ridgeway Technical College — Alert (updated 08:50)**
*The college will reopen at 09:00. Please come to the front door. Staff will confirm attendance.*
· · ·
I didn't go anywhere. Marcia wouldn't let Marcus out, and I stayed in her hall with the front door locked and the radio on. The radio said the roads were fine. The radio said the forecast had changed to *light snow, becoming heavy from nine*.
At 08:58, the window on the landing went white.
It wasn't snow. It was the light from a classroom, coming up through the glass, a flat white light that smelled of old wood and paint and something sweeter. Through it I could see people moving behind frosted panes, very small, lining up.
Marcia put her hand over my mouth. She didn't speak. I felt her fingers shaking.
At 09:00 the front door opened by itself, very slowly, and a cold draught came up the hall, and on the step outside, in a neat row, stood four people in college lanyards. They were facing the house. Their breath did not show. Behind them, down the path, the street was white with snow up to the kerb, and the snow was still falling, and every flake, I saw as it reached the steps, was shaped like a small grey ticket with a name written on it.
The first of them lifted a hand.
"Register," she said, quite politely. "Please come in and be counted."
Marcus took a step forward.
Marcia caught his arm and pulled him back, and held him, and wouldn't let go, while the four on the step stood, and the snow kept falling on the path with the patience of an institution that has been holding its roll for years.
· · ·
**Ridgeway Technical College — Alert (final)**
*The college is CLOSED today due to weather. The register has been taken. Thank you for your cooperation.*
*Sent 09:14*
*Attendance: 4 of 4.*