Alternate Title: Whenever It Snows in Southern California

You know when you a story and you notice the protagonist shares the same name as you? Well this is one of those cases for me, so that was fun. I don't know how old Brian is supposed be here, but I'm guessing about ten years old.

Being from New Jersey, I've seen snow in the past 500 hours, rather than years. A lot of people here wouldn't mind a few centuries without that conspicuous white substance.

Part of me wants to praise "That" for surprising me in a very pleasant way; it's very cuddly for a post-apocalypse story, and will probably be the most benevolent of the family of such stories we'll no doubt encounter this round. At the same time there are stylistic choices that I take issue with, and they're too frequent to ignore.

The first problem lies in the title. Call it nitpicking, but wouldn't it have been better to add an exclamation point in there? Or at least a period? It seems like the word is dangling helplessly in the horrific prison that is those quotations marks, and it doesn't have a companion or anything. It just seems off.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have an overuse of "?!" as a way to end exclamatory sentences. You don't see this combination in professional fiction often, because it's kind of hideous. It might be convenient, in that it indicates a question that is also exclamatory, but it implies to me a lack of polish.

There are quite a few sentences that begin with "But," "And," and easily the worst of all, "Then." I think it was Jonathan Franzen (middle-aged white dude who won a few awards or something) who said you should avoid starting a sentence with "Then" at all costs, and unlike a great number of "rules" your English teacher gave you in high school I agree with this one.

Also, Brian seemed to undergo a very brief sex change in one sentence; you'll know it when you find it.

It sounds like I'm really ragging on this story, but I'm focusing on its lack of polish because it's otherwise a pleasant read, and it'd be a shame if the author abandoned it in its current state.

I know we have this collective habit of ditching our WriteOff entries as soon as the round is over, but please think this over.

Please?

Your Story's Theme Song: David Allred - For The Penguins

Seems like hope springs eternal even when the world has ended.

It's nice to have something bright and beautiful to grace us masochistic writers with its rare presence once in a while, so I'm glad this entry exists, especially since this is a round that, art aside, has the world 'Colour' in its prompt.

I mostly concur with >>No_Raisin's notes on polishing it a little, but I'm inclined to think you can reserve all the "?!" in Brian's sentences. I feel like it adds some sort of vigor and vibrancy to his character that his parents certainly wouldn't have possessed prior to this event. Regarding that, I also wished that Brian's parents were around in that final scene just so I can witness them being excited and reinvigorated by their childlike wonder. I think such a scene would hit home further just how magical the return of snowfall would be.

Also, unlike Raisin, I live on the Equator, so more snow is appreciated!

Thanks for writing! Would love to see more from this!

This is a neat idea, and I really like how it manages to make a low-stakes conflict into a world-building opportunity.

I did have trouble with the overall pacing of the reveal, though. After the first couple of "that"s, (including the one in the title), I have to say that I was really tempted to jump to the end. There are only two main pieces of information that are revealed before the twist—that something special is happening tonight, and that it hasn't happened in 500 years. These are both very simple pieces of information, and the first is actually given to us immediately. The second one doesn't hit us until nearly 500 words into the story, which is a huge portion of the minific where we're waiting for any kind of follow-up.

My suggestion would be to lean into the world-building aspects more, which is the main draw of this story anyway. Find ways to keep dropping hints about the state of this world throughout the story. Maybe the "weekly loaf of bread" bit could be moved earlier or something. The point is, you have to make the reader feel like they're making progress towards uncovering the mystery, or else it feels like you're just beating around the bush until the end.