The cold hard truth about cold and hard - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

The time has come. We have tolerated this long enough. We have shovelled, scraped, skidded, stumbled and suffered through these months of relentless ice and snow, and we refuse to endure a single second more. Winter, you coward, you brute, you frigid tyrant! Meet us in the street! We are challenging you to a fight! Not a metaphorical fight. Not a battle of wills. A real, physical, bare-knuckle brawl, a no-holds-barred slugfest, a winner-takes-all royal rumble between us and you.

 

Do not mistake our civility for weakness. Do not assume our politeness extends to the elemental forces that oppress us. We have reached the limit of our patience. Our mittens are off. If you think we will continue to let you blast us with winds that peel the flesh from our bones, think again. If you believe we will keep trudging through waist-high drifts like obedient little snow-fools, reconsider. If you assume we will just keep salting the driveway while weeping softly, then you have grossly underestimated our capacity for blind, frostbitten rage.

 

First, we are going to punch a snowbank. Then, we are going to slap every icicle we see. We will deliver a series of firm, open-palmed smacks until they break off and crash to the ground in disgrace.

 

Next, we will kick winter where it hurts: right in the gusts. You think you can blind us with wind so sharp it makes our eyes water instantly? Well, guess what? We are 

 

coming for you. We will roundhouse every blistering squall, bicycle-kick every howling gale, deliver a flawless spinning back heel to every Arctic blast that dares enter our vicinity.

 

And do not think you can hide behind the sleet. Sleet is nothing to us. We laugh in its stupid little face. Freezing rain? Oh, you mean slippery sadness? We will leg-drop it right into a slush puddle. Black ice? That is just a sneak attack, and we will counter it with an elbow drop from the top turnbuckle of a snow-covered Chevrolet Equinox.

 

And yes, we know winter has its defenders. “Oh, but the fresh snow is so pretty,” they say. “Oh, but the crisp air is invigorating.” To those people, we say this: we once thought the same. We once romanticized the delicate crunch of snow underfoot. We once believed in the simple pleasure of watching soft flakes drift lazily to the ground. But winter has betrayed us. It has gone too far. It has outstayed its welcome. We are no longer in awe of its beauty. We are in opposition to its tyranny.

 

So, winter, show yourself. No more hiding behind quaint imagery and festive nostalgia. No more skulking in the shadows of our Seasonal Affective Disorder. Face us. Mano a mano. Frostbite a fist. Let us settle this once and for all.

 

***

 

Havoc was wrought. Blows were exchanged. Snowbanks were punched, icicles were slapped clean off their perches, and the very concept of wind was drop-kicked into the next dimension. Winter, once a towering adversary, now lies vanquished. The streets run slush-red with its defeat. The great battle is over.

 

And yet.

 

A strange silence lingers in the air, thick and unsettling. We have won, undeniably, but in our triumph, we find no satisfaction. No thrill. No joy. The cold, once an omnipresent enemy, was at least a companion. And now, in its absence, we feel hollow. Aimless. A gladiator with no arena. A snow-shoveller with no snow. A warrior with nothing left to war against.

 

The first days were euphoric. The sun returned, warm and golden, as if celebrating our conquest. We walked outside in triumph, wearing only light jackets, sneering at the defeated remnants of winter as they melted in disgrace. Puddles formed where ice once lurked, and we stomped through them with reckless, victorious abandon. We inhaled deeply, tasting air that no longer carried the sting of betrayal.

 

But then: nothing.

 

No more dramatic battles against the elements. No more wind howling in fury, forcing us to bow our heads like supplicants. No more waking up to a snowed-in car, shaking our fists at the heavens before embarking on a two-hour excavation with a flimsy plastic shovel. Life, once a gritty struggle against the forces of nature, has become... easy.

 

Too easy.

 

Without winter, who are we? We have been forged in the fires of frostbite and windburn, sculpted by the relentless torment of freezing temperatures. And now, stripped of our struggle, we drift. We wander the warm streets, lost, unmoored.
Spring arrives, oblivious to our malaise. The grass returns, cocky and green. The birds sing, untroubled by existential despair. Life resumes, but we feel unfulfilled. We spent so long fighting that we never stopped to ask what would happen if we won.