Winter's Frigid Hand

Old man winter is hanging onto the weather like it's a floppy fish, giving us glimpses of spring before closing his icy hands around us again. Winter is dying but spring has yet to take hold and so the world is fully of death and decay.

I'm in an odd mood today. I keep thinking of digusting things, seeing visions of my animals without skin, covered in flies and maggots like unloved carrion. I feel like half of my body is dead weight, dragging me down and destroying my joints with every step I take toward the fridge. I walk around campus and think about how it would look after a nuclear bomb exploded, how bodies can turn to dust in seconds and the wind could wash us to the sea.

I think about diseases in the third world, of curable ailments left to fester, disfigure and ostracize. I think about rats in a meat grinder and salivate for Taco Bell.

I just feel death and disease, but it's not ugly or horrible. It's like falling asleep after injesting a fatal dose of arsenic. There's something still and stunningly placid about it all. The decay is comforting.

Spring is coming and with it, a frenetic burst of life and growth. The calm will be broken by a cacophony of bird calls and the shrill laughter of hideous youths in love. And when that fucking robin is chirping at the sun at 5am, the death and decay of winter may seem idyllic.

Yup. Today is one of those days when I can walk beside Death, scythe and all, without being the least bit frightened. He seems more like a partner than an adversary. He's not a spectre, but an angel in his own way. He clears the decay so life can begin.

Told ya I was in a funny mood.

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