Wintertide

Unbelievable Pictures of Frozen Europe

There is a lot of fuss and debates about global warming, even the writing competitions start to appear. Is it human influence or it's just normal natural circle which we can't perceive because we have been collecting data for only couple of hundred years or maybe it is solar activities, or solar radiation, or magnetic storms or change in tilt of the earth's axis? We don't know yet for sure but whatever the cause is, the fact is that climate changes in front of our eyes.

I know that because when I was younger, the seasons were more stable, there weren't so many storms, so big oscillations in daily temperatures and so extreme weather. I hear a lot about rising temperature and that drought will strike us so we will have less and less drinking water, ice would melt and the sea level will rise. It looks like we are going to live in a much warmer world than we used to.

Five, six years ago (probably more :-)) I was surprised when I realised it was April and there was still snow in the mountains around Rijeka and that there was still a smell and taste of winter. In Croatia, on the northern part of the Adriatic coast where I live, we were used to the middle of spring in April – bees buzzin', yellow butterflies acting like they know where they flying, swallows nesting, sweet pollen in the air that is pleasantly warm, winter cold melting from our ankles and vitality running through our bodies, girls wearing shorter dresses and blouses and for the moment it looks like everything is OK. Even thought "Life is beautiful!" may cross our minds. On the first of May (a national holiday in Croatia celebrated as International Worker's Day), usually we would all wear t-shirts and even got first sunburns if we fall asleep in a meadow after barbecue and couple of beers. :-) But instead of half-dressed girls I'm looking at the mountains covered with snow and I'm still wearing a winter jacket, a scarf and a cap. Then thought crossed my mind: "What if global warming isn't about living in a warmer world but, instead, living in the Ice Age?"

That was the beginning of short story collection named Wintertide. I wrote three stories set in that world. Even one part of my novel Night by the River (currently in translation and it will be published in autumn if my translator comes home alive from Istanbul – I monitor her over the Facebook :-)) is set in that ice-frozen future city of Rijeka. One of those stories you can read on this blog here, or you can buy it here just to taste what this short story collection will look like or to support my writing. While you do that I'll keep writing new stories.

And remember that we are living in between two ice ages.

"Winter is not coming. Winter is here."

Stay frosty!