Chronicles of the Snow and Ice
I’ve only ever read two books in my life that altered my emotional balance for days. One was Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon, the other was The Road by Cormac McCarty. The Road sent my whole sense of well being plummeting downwards in so convincing a manner that it mimicked an actual depression. I was down, but nothing bad was happening in my life. I would wake up and think, what’s wrong, then remember, oh, that book, that damn book. The Road was an unrelenting trudge through the coldest, bleakest, most God deserted, demon infested, bowels of the abyss, and although others found the ending hopeful, I always thought they were clutching at straws. If the world of The Road intended to forgive humanity for what they, (I’d say we, but I haven’t done anything,) had done, it would have sent an emissary, a cockroach perhaps, much as I despise them, or a briar pushing a living branch through the waste, as a sign of potential reconciliation. It didn’t. The world was dead or at least clutching its riches to itself until humanity had been starved and frozen into extinction. My depression was so severe that I considered rereading Godbody, a book which had the opposite effect, (I was ecstatic and I wondered why. Nothing amazing had happened,) in order to lift it. However, life intervened; I got busy and managed to put it out of my mind.
So anyway, all that’s by way of saying that this whole cold snap we’ve just experienced here put me in mind of the world of The Road. And it’s no use pointing out that other countries have it colder, for longer. Here in Ireland, we believe that we have traded the possibility of ever having a decent summer for the promise of a mild winter. Snow, as a novelty, is adorable. Once it’s on the ground for longer than 48 hours, it becomes the most despised, hated, contemptible, odious, substance in creation. Especially when it’s combined with such unpleasant coldness. The footpaths did not unfreeze. The roads did not unfreeze. The ground stayed stiff and hard, the birds walked peculiarly because the frozen grass did not bend beneath them. I went for a walk in the woods on one of the days when it let up a little, enough to drive the car without playing Russian Roulette with your life, (the government here believe in gritting main roads only, and particularly those in the east of the country. Here, in the west they can be done spasmodically, apparently. We must stick to the ground better or something. Those rural people, more in tune with gravity, don’t ya know.) Side roads, which most of us live on are not touched and as for the estates which became ice rinks, bwahahahahah. Although there was one incident of estate gritting, of which more later.)
Back to the woods and even there, the ground was frozen in the more exposed places. I came across walkers gathering their nerve to attempt long stretches of sheer ice. I had to cross them too or turn back, and I had gathered every inch of my driving courage to get there. I wasn’t going home that quick. The dog, my walking companion, barked incessantly at me every time I slowed down for an icy patch. A few times he turned and charged back towards me almost as if he was coming once and for all to sort out my slowness. I had to hang onto the briars for balance and threaten all kinds of doggy horrors if he so much as attempted to touch me. As soon as I resumed my normal pace he would quieten down again.
This went on for 23 days, the last week being the worst. The novelty had well and truly worn off. The roads got so bad, ice packed on ice packed on ice, that you couldn’t chance travelling unless your life depended on it. I live on the top of a pretty high hill in my estate. Cars park on either side of the somewhat narrow road and force you to brake and manoeuvre and zig-zag all the way down. It’s a lovely, wake me up, of a morning when conditions are good, (sarcasm) but fairly nigh on impossible when the whole thing is covered in ice. On my way to work one of the mornings when this all began, the car slid all the way into the kerb. There was no stopping it, not an ounce of traction. If there had been a car in that spot I would have hit it. I just got lucky. I went on foot to check the hill one night to see if it might be drivable in the morning and discovered that I couldn’t walk down. The road and the footpaths were gripless and the gaps across the driveways where there were no walls left nothing to hold onto and therefore just made the whole thing impossible. That’s when the term cabin fever really became clarified for me.
So, I couldn’t drive out. I couldn’t walk out, (that really bothered me.) I was hearing stories of people’s pipes freezing and them being without water. My food supplies were running low. I HAD NO MILK. :(
(Ok, I did have food, only no really lovely stuff, and I had Soya milk, but I didn’t really like it, especially not in tea, which is the whole purpose of milk. I gave it a fair old try though but have concluded that me and Soya milk are not going to work out, not just yet anyway.)
I did have the Internet and the phone, and the TV. My school closed of its own volition for two days, which increased the sense of claustrophobia and catastrophe. Then the government closed the schools for three extra days, (much more sensible than salting the roads. J ) We were supposed to be closed by government order for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. We were warned that low temperatures and snow like you've never seem it before, (SLYNSIB) was coming, and would last for another whole week, and we’d already had three weeks of it. Mon Dieu. I was living The Road. J
All I needed was for the pipes to burst and I think I would have gone next door, kidnapped the neighbours, chained them up in the shed, (I have no basement) and carved slices off them for my supper for the rest of the apocalypse . 1
And my oil was running out too. It was like the end of natural resources.
Having said all that, the weather on the weekend prior to SLYNSIB was fairly steady. It didn’t get better. It didn’t get worse. I ordered oil wondering whether a lorry could come up the hill.
It did. Hurray, I thought. I am being a fool. If he can come up, I can go down. I asked him what he thought. He gave me a look of horror. The horror of what he had been through and what was still ahead of him. He told me all the places he had top deliver oil to that day and he looked, well, damn, damn, damn, worried. Apparently the neighbours, feeling particularly neighbourly had lined up their cars in a beautiful zig zaggy pattern and the lorry driver wasn’t particularly confident he could get down without destroying one of them. We had a beautiful 21st century moment where we searched for their numbers in the phone book so he could ring them to get their cars in off the road. Failing to find numbers we were at a bit of a loss as to what he was going to do, but then we remembered the old days when people spoke to each other and we decided he could just park the lorry and walk in and ask them to move. J
So that was Saturday. SLYNSIB was coming and going to last for a week, and I HAD NO MILK. (Only Soya milk which I have discussed earlier.) I decided I would have to chance going into town. The lorry driver would have got the cars moved, I figured, (hoped) and besides, if my pipes burst and I had to eat the neighbours, I wouldn’t have any water to wash them down with. So, I’m sitting there, thinking OK, I’m going to go now, any minute now, when I hear an agriculture roar and a tractor zooms up the hill, a grit spreader on the business end. The one and only time my estate got gritted in the entire three weeks. So, I hopped in the car and went to town and bought food for an army. The neighbours will never know how close it came.
The next day was when SLYNSIB was promised. However it never materialised. Monday, on our government day off, there was even a hint of a thaw. The government rescinded the three day closure leaving it up to schools to decide themselves. I wouldn’t call the roads perfect today, there’s still ice and an incredible wind, and it’s freezing cold, but I am back at work and no longer housebound. Damn you The Road. I think I might have managed to knock a little more enjoyment out of the houseboundedness and general calamity, if I hadn’t read your depressive tale. It’s the book that bites once, and once again. Only for reading on the beach is my recommendation. J
Oh and one other thing. During the worst of the weather I received a text saying,
“The weathermen say the temperature is going to drop really low tonite and everyone should check on the elderly and senile.
Ok I think. Who do I know that’s old?
I scroll down to read
Are you ok?
Ha! Funny!
But actually, the really funny thing is that the elderly neighbours on one side,(I hadn’t planned on eating those,) made their very cautious way down the hill one of the days and asked me did I want them to bring me anything back from the shops. Never mind checking up on the elderly. Put them to work for you is what I say. J
Anyway, all this talk about THE HILL. I should write a depressing book and call it that.
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I had never considered that I might ever chain people up alive in a freezing cold basement and carve slices off them gradually, always cauterizing the wound so that the “meat” stays fresh. However, according to The Road, during a man induced eternal winter, I might do just that. I ‘m willing to bet I never would. No matter what. Besides, it was freezing anyway. The meat would have kept. That’s just dumb. J