Warming, by Eric Smith

Slumped in the rocker, Cotter stared at the same sentence on the page. The novel he’d long wanted to read disappointed him. He looked outside across the field—a snow sky. Of course, everyone insisted it no longer snowed—the climate had warmed. Then the first flakes floated down. He’d have missed them except they stood out against the red side of the barn. They began in earnest, small ones, knifing down first diagonally as he stared, mesmerized. Then they became larger, greater spaces between them, falling straighter now, but dancing as they did. The book slid onto the floor.