Dave, the techie, has created glasses that filter out non-red light. Thus, looking at the snowfields outside, we see fields of red that make us want to vomit. This reminds us that although snow insinuates itself as a symbol of purity and innocence, it is the cause of widespread death: many a family has met tragedy when their breadwinner dies in a snow-related traffic accident on eir way to work.

These “blood-glasses” help us keep our focus, especially when we are feeling discouraged in our academic work: not only will we resist the hypnotic tendency to stare at the mounds of freshly-fallen snow and let our minds go blank, we will turn up our lips in disgust at the masochistic students building bloodmen (who will bleed to death slowly when the sun shines) outside, and aggressively close the window shades to avoid nausea, instead seeking refuge in our books.

When I suggested to Dave that his invention would have been much more useful back in December, he told me that he, too, had been willfully blind to the dangers of snow until his father’s death. Despite the fact that the snow will soon melt, however, all his glasses have sold out, as many students reasoned that they would be cheaper now than at the beginning of next winter, just as The Shop of Forgotten Things marks up the prices of its umbrellas by 10% during rainy days. Dave reports that some of these students have found a secondary use of the glasses for the non-winter months ahead of us.

“Blue light at night is harmful to our circadian rhythms,” Klarissa says, citing a research article on human biology, “so we use the glasses to study late while minimizing the effects on our sleep.”

Dave apologizes for the shortage, and promises that before next winter, he will have manufactured many more such glasses.