Jack Thurman stood on his back porch in his t-shirt, watching his daughter Sarah build what she called a "snowman" out of dead leaves and mud. It was December 15th, and the thermometer on the wall read 72 degrees. The trees in their backyard were confused as hell, some of them starting to bud again like it was spring. Nature was running a fever, and these false blooms were its way of sweating it out.

Last week, his buddy Mike had gone deer hunting in a Hawaiian shirt. Said he'd sweated his balls off sitting in the blind, and the deer weren't moving right anyway—their patterns all screwed up by the weather. The old-timers at the diner talked about it every morning over their coffee, shaking their heads about how you used to need long johns and hand warmers this time of year. Now they sat there in short sleeves, gulping iced drinks instead of hot.

"Look, Daddy!" Sarah called out, proudly pointing at her creation. It was a sad thing, really—a wobbling tower of brown leaves held together with mud, decorated with some of the spring flowers that had no business blooming in December. She'd stuck two sticks in for arms, just like you would with a real snowman. The sight of it made Jack's heart hurt in a way he couldn't quite explain.

(Jesus Christ, how do you explain to an eight-year-old why there used to be snow in winter?)

"Time to go in, pumpkin," he called out. "Storms coming." One of those new storms they got now, the kind that brought rain instead of snow and wind that made the weather alert system scream on his phone. Tomorrow the leaf-man would be gone, washed away by the rain that should've been snow, leaving behind nothing but mud and memories of winters past.