Sudden Calamity: Survival

Christmas is coming

Christmas was coming, and Alice missed her father very much. Dad was always cheerful. Thinking about mom, she was a hard working housewife. Alice remembered helping her mother with chores as a child. She had broken a bowl. Mother scolded Alice for being clumsy. In a year, only winter can bring Christmas charm. In the deep winter, wrapped under layers of ice and snow, at this time, the winter land was cold and desolate. The day was dark and short. The nights were dark and long, and at night the fires in the house were bright and warm. It was pitch black outside, the sound of the harp and Christmas carols, and the feast at the long table. This year Alice was going to make some sweets for Christmas to give to nearby villagers.

Alice started to prepare some things. First, Alice need some sugar, and Alice can take out some potatoes to make sugar. Potatoes contain starch, and all foods containing starch can be made into sugar, including rice, flour, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes and so on. Alice need some molds for making candies. Alice found a few pieces of hard wood, chopped them into flat boards, and carved a square groove on the flat boards.

The groove was about 20cm square, with a depth of 3cm. Alice scraped the edge of the groove with a knife, and then ground it very smooth with an iron. Alice washed the grooves with water, dried them, brushed them with oil, and preserved them.

Early in the morning, Alice boiled the potatoes and sweet potatoes in a pot. Alice boiled them into soft potatoes, and then peeled off the potatoes and sweet potatoes. The meat and skin inside these potatoes and sweet potatoes have separated. She peeled off the whole potato and sweet potato skin. Alice mashed these peeled and sweet potatoes with an iron awl to make mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. She then added a large amount of water to the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, and then boiled them in an iron pot on an earthen stove. She let them cook for 4 hours, so that the sugar was dissolved in the water. Alice added a little gypsum powder to the mixture of sweet potato mash and water. This way, they turned into sugar better. Alice filters the juice of these mashed potatoes, no residue, only the juice water. These potato juices are rich in sugar.

Now it was time to boil the sugar. Alice had cut down a lot of branches and used them as fuel. The juice of these potatoes and sweet potatoes had been boiled in the "pot" for half a day, gradually concentrating. In the end, Alice's "pot" was now nothing but brown syrup, which was bubbling in the pot above the action of the flame at the bottom, bubble after bubble under the viscous liquid. Alice observed carefully, using a shovel to shovel the liquid in the pot to prevent them from sticking to the pot. Alice took all the grooved boards she had prepared earlier and brushed the inside and sides of the grooves with oil so they wouldn't stick together. Then Alice separated the syrup in the "pot" with a shovel, and put a ball in each groove. These syrups were very hot, so, they were now soft and still a thick liquid that flowed around like melted wax. However Alice knew that after a minute or two, they would become semi-solid like jelly, and if it took a little longer, they would harden and become like rock.

Alice was finally finished. Alice ate a few pieces of dried wolf meat in a hurry, fell asleep, and dreamed: It was the day before December, and Alice traveled a long distance in Yorkshire in a stagecoach. The carriage was a bit crowded. It was full of passengers inside and out. Alice learned that most of them were going to the big house of relatives and friends to attend the Christmas dinner. The box she took with her in the car was full of wild game. Called hares and pheasants were hung on the cart. Long rabbit ears dangled beside the driver's seat. These were congratulatory gifts brought by friends from far away for the banquet that night. Three rosy-cheeked students sat in the carriage with Alice. The driver had a broad face, and there was always some redness on his face. It seemed that the blood rushed into the capillaries of his skin too violently. He was always slightly tipsy from good ale. He wore a hat with a loose, low crown and a colourful scarf around his neck. It was tied into a knot on the chest.

After getting out of the carriage, the coachman put his hands in his coat pockets and walked around the yard in style. Alice's light-hearted mood predominates. She thought, 'everyone I met on the journey had a sad face', and the car horn blared when entering the village. Alice woke up suddenly. It turned out to be a rooster crowing.