I am thawed. Spring. Beneath this snow heap I’ve emerged from a thousand discontented winters. All has melted around me, a nobody caveman frozen in absurdity. How long have I laid in this icy solidity? A hundred, a million years? I don’t know. How could I? If I recall correctly I had slipped on a glacier in Siberia whilst escaping a frustrated mammoth. But that might be wrong. I’m not sure. They say the brain is the last of the organs to fully defrost. But really, does it matter?
But what’s this? I have somehow drifted into a metropolitan bustle, surrounded by civilians and Duane Reade pharmacies. From Siberia to a city sidewalk, another victim of plate tectonics. People pass by, staring at my genitals, betrayed by a loincloth. This childhood nightmare: why should I be surprised at its fulfillment? Empty.
How my embryonic chamber – this sidewalk snow – lasted this long in this large a municipality is a wonder. You would think they’d have plows by now. They must be recovering from some global deep freeze. Perhaps there’s a neighborhood meeting where they could explain all this. I should probably register to vote.
The filth of a blizzard: Next to me lies a one-winged pigeon with part of a Snickers wrapper in its mouth, killed mid-swallow in a final attempt at satisfaction. Nearby is a tattered pair of underpants printed with robots and wizards. Such waste. And here I see that is not all. Needles. Toothpaste. Sour Patch Kids. Trash litters this sidewalk soup. I was better off in Siberia, where the only litter we saw was the morning after a pack of saber-toothes binge hunted and flung their scraps all over town like temperamental dictators. They were always a fussy lot, tigers.
But, look. What cheery-eyed insanity governs the faces of these urbanites? What scantily clad impulse has driven them to adorn their bodies in such thin and bright material? So quickly are they healed of their cabin fever! Such abandon, I feel it myself. It’s as if this seasonal pattern has wrought in them a charge of primal indiscipline, as all have abandoned occupation on this sunny Thursday for a 3pm happy hour at a bar called “F*** It”.
They are wild with freedom. I commiserate with their yearning for recklessness, for now is the time we all together agree that wouldn’t it be great to finally get to the beach.
‘I would love to try that one restaurant.’
‘I would love to go to that concert in the park.’
‘I would love to set a couch on fire and start a college riot.’
I wonder if that bar serves food. Nachos sound good. Maybe a margarita.
Only cavemen really know that Spring is the scorned lover of Responsibility, forever badmouthing it’s well-intentioned advice that they ‘take it slow.’ In these few months she will take her revenge, a promiscuous blossom that will inevitably wither in the heat of an Indian summer. Spring has sprung and will be undone and apparently I rhyme when I’m drunk.
Not surprisingly, alcohol tolerance seems to deteriorate when you are frozen for long periods of time and oh my God a bucket of Coronas is only five dollars? Are you kidding? I’m getting that. I’m totally getting that next.
So here I stand, thawed, naked, on the sidewalk of a bar where no one seems to care. Oh how I’ve missed the sorrow of civic-minded solipsism. I can but despair in the weight of this Sisyphean season, knowing full well that winter will surely come again. But this is Sprunk – sorry, spilled my drink – but this is Spring, where frost is defeated. Am I lost? Found? Am I old? Am I new? How much longer for my nachos?