I spent the greater part of this past Thursday with my mind locked onto coming up with the perfect metaphor for a feeling I had. I can easily go through the motions of work while letting my mind run in different directions. But it didn't run very far. A weak metaphor came up for a moment to sniff at the bait, but it soon disappeared into a hole beneath an old fallen chestnut tree.

There has been snow off and on all week. Inches upon inches. In some areas just to the south there were somewhere around 16 or 17 inches of snow. All along Lake Ontario, there has been almost continuous snowfall. And the air is getting frigid. Frigid as in brittle and dry. Squeaky, crisp, and sharp. Frigid like it should be in late January and early February. Frigid like it should be right before Winter finishes sharpening its knives and lacerates us with the wind.

Whole regions are emptied out by fighting and only a few pockets of civilian life remain. Quietly, like Stalingrad whenever the sides were reloading, frost moves across the puddles and into the spaces between coats, shirts, and skin. Into the boots and above the socks, pushing moisture in between the toes. Flying across the empty lots like leaves in full retreat after a month of captivity underneath petrified snow. Whole regions like this. Fields in muddy disarray. Leach fields blown out into the open and months-old shit festering underneath the cold moon's glow. Shit and rags. Smoke. Piles of used cartridges. A small, surprisingly untouched and unsoiled stack of magazines taken from a bombarded convenient mart. Magazines so boring and puerile that the combatants pass them up in favor of bathing in the fetid ponds. We wait.