As I write this, big fat snowflakes of doom are descending upon us. It’s all over but the renting of the garments, the gnashing of the teeth, the bitter pronunciation of a life poorly spent, and the pale, as the last embers of that pressed paper log that was bought God knows how long ago die fitfully in the fireplace, that embraces us as we freeze to death.
How tragic.
Up here in temperate rainforestland we do not handle snow well. Some, it should be said, attempt a relationship with the snow collecting in the Cascades or Olympic mountains, but for the great majority, snow is an icy horror that belongs only upon the crown of Mount Rainier. In the lowlands, it is nothing more than a grim reminder of why we got the hell out of Denver, or Minneapolis, or Minot, or some other dreadful place.
(Disclosure, that imperative that haunts those given to conscience, compels me to own up to the fact that I grew up in a place called Arvada, which is a burb of Denver, and that I did through my formative years suffer inordinately at the hands of that grim spectre of death known as snow.)
Here, our slice of hell is gloomy days of low slung clouds and the monotony of regular rain that at time is reminiscent of death in that it seeps into our bones and makes some of us nearly translucent, but we’re not trapped in our homes, left to the clutches of whatever is stocked on our shelves because standing in line for an eternity just for the pleasure of choking down a cardboard pizza is too much to bear.
Better to be frozen like our pioneer ancestors who foolishly thought primeval forests were better that frozen brutish plains or Nor’easters.
Lastly, and most bitterly, that our final moments on this mortal coil are the fodder of those apostates who fled to warmer climes to the south and merry themselves at our utter devastation by throwing that in our faces. Woe that we must endure, as our last breath leaves our lungs like a cheap smoke, the vile condescension of those with more luck than sense (It might be the other way around but I won’t admit that).
For shame!
And so, before the cold prevents me from tapping the keys, I wish to bid you all a fond farewell, unless you were mean to me, which I never forgive, and hope you remember me fondly.
Adieu.
©2019 David William Pearce
David William Pearce, Writer 