I am a cold man…. I am a wintry man. I am a hypothermic man. My boots are caked in salt residue, but I won’t tell anyone. The salt can eat through the leather, and I won’t even care! Why should I? I never owed the boots anything. I don’t owe anything to anyone, especially when it’s this cold.
Sometimes I worry that I’ll never see the sun again. But who, after all, needs the light? All it brings is cancer anyway. As if I cared about cancer.
Sure, it would be warmer if I wore a hat, I know that. But I see plenty of guys who wear them just to fit in, and I’m sticking it to them all! You can’t make me do anything just because you do it too. Oh, I know what you’re thinking — this guy must be one of those who refuses to wear a cap on account of his perfectly-messed-up, bedhead hair. That may be true too, but then again, my bedhead is authentic — it took me hours to get it this genuine, and no negative-degree day is going to take that away from me now.
I almost hit a runner with my car the other day. The idiot was running in little shorts through the snowdrifts, and the ice was gathered thickly on my windshield. And he was nearly gathered thickly on my windshield. Yes, yes, we know, you’re from Minnesota and this is nothing like the winter up there. But pink legs don’t lie.
I’m afraid of the icicles that cling to the bottom of my car. They look like giant teeth. What if they fall under my tires? They’re like the gnarly fingers of Old Man Winter trying to drag my car into his snow-covered hell. I’ll never let him win. I will always knock those icicles off my bumper, hold them triumphantly high in the air, and then throw them into the nearest snowdrift with a smirk.
The cold strengthens my resolve to never, ever fake a smile; I’m too authentic for that, too hibernal. Just to make sure, I keep a steady frown, and everyone else seems to copy me, as always. I was in love once, but never in winter. All things die in winter… except my resigned despondency and crippling self-doubt. Nothing exists in winter, nothing is real, or maybe my fingers have just gone numb again and I can’t feel my face and thus don’t even know what I’m saying.
Why do these plows keep trying? Don’t they know it will just keep falling? They’re so corporate. Snow plows know nothing about the organic nature of snow. I laugh as it blows right back onto the sidewalk after those machines throw it in the air.
All weekend my bedroom is a cell. My computer screen is the only window I look through that isn’t frosted over…yet. I dream, I drool, I lust for warmer days! I’d go for a walk in the afternoons if I didn’t believe with my whole heart that I would be taking my life in my hands. (I almost just wadded this paper up and threw it outside, thinking my angst might melt the snow on my driveway, but I didn’t; I saved this, for you, so you can know how veracious I am.)
When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. I know exactly what he is talking about! But then what is to be done? Do I stay indoors all day while the sun is out there, somewhere, elsewhere? I’ll tell you exactly what is to be done, the only thing that can be done — put on another pair of socks and make a cup of tea, for this winter isn’t going anywhere soon.
