I'm watching snow on tv. Across a simulated milky grey sky, flakes drift noiselessly onto the soundstage out of view where they melt into puddles. They run into a drain, and are spun clean of all particulates in a centrifuge. Snowflake corpses are fed back into the mashine to begin the cycle again, forming around nearly invisible specks of dust and spreading out in facets from that point. Each time they cycle through, something new. Everything from a simple hexagonal chunk of ice, to many-splintered complex dendrites. The temperature in the studio is varied every 8.72 hours to ensure different densities and patterns. In the corner of the screen is a camera hooked up to a powerful microscope. It takes a magnified picture of a snowflake every few seconds and displays the close up on the screen. If you touch it, information about that particular kind of crystal is displayed. Of course, by the time the image appears, that snowflake has already melted and started the re-freezing process to become something new.
There are other channels too. One focuses on cloud formations, another on wind patterns. For those who prefer more of a thrill, there's the NDN, which runs simulations of natural disasters as they take over well known vacation ports and business hubs. Monday is "Fires: Out of Control!" night, I think. I'm watching snow on tv. If my home came with heating or cooling, I would turn it to cold, and turn out all the lights. I take all my clothes off to simulate cold, although it never gets below seventy. I imagine blue toes, and fingers, and red numb running noses. I put my sheets over the skylights to block out the sun, and turn up the tv until the white noise blocks out the sound of the city, and watch the snow on tv.
No prompt, I was just thinking about static.