Ten degrees Fahrenheit. That’s where it started. But after having glanced in another direction, I looked again. The temperature had risen, during that fleeting moment, by ten percent. Without knowing exactly how long a fleeting moment lasts, I cannot determine how many more fleeting moments I would have to experience in order for ice to begin to thaw. Does ice thaw? Or is “thaw” reserved for other materials, like ice cream or meat? Ice melts, of course, but it does not necessarily thaw. And meat, if frozen, can thaw; but my imagination delivers a revolting image when I envision melted meat. Ice cream undergoes a change when temperatures rise beyond a certain point. I would say the sweet, cold delight melts. However, I could tolerate calling the transition a thaw; no, I take that back. I could tolerate hearing someone else describing the transformation as a thaw, but I could not tolerate using that description, myself, in connection to the response of ice cream to higher temperatures. Ice reacts to increasing temperatures by changing from solid to liquid. I would not describe warmed ice cream as liquid, though. I might call it viscous fluid. Ice changes into water when temperature and atmospheric pressure reach specific levels; when conditions are right. And water morphs into something like a gaseous vapor as the cycle continues. But ice cream? To my knowledge, I have never before contemplated vanilla fog or butterscotch mist. That is not to say those two imaginary conditions cannot exist. Yet I am confident in my doubts. The temperature has lost the single degree it earlier gained. Where, I wonder, did it go? I sometimes wonder the same thing about music; when its sounds are no longer heard, did they become trapped in ice? And, if they were frozen in silence, will they melt…or thaw…when conditions allow? Similar questions surround clear glass windows. If clear glass is invisible, it cannot be seen; but we know it’s there. With the application of the right amount of heat, clear glass shatters into clearly visible shards. But truth, when exposed to sufficient levels of heat, can melt—revealing harsh lies previously hidden beneath layer upon layer of innuendo, implication, insinuation, suggestion, and subterfuge. All of it…every shred, every piece, each particle…contributes as much to confusion as fuel feeds fire and flames.
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Strip off the irrelevance; the only thing left is meaning that matters.
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The final day of January—of this year, at least—arrived earlier than expected, just as I imagined it would. Halloween came early last year, just days after the Grinch stole Christmas the year before. St. Patrick’s Day this year will coincide with the Fall Harvest, when elderly children will leave pocket knives under their pillows as incentives for the Tooth Fairy. Cambodian grandparents will celebrate Bastille Day by stuffing pillows in chimneys to prevent Cinderella and the Seventy Dwarfs from entering the kingdom of Hansel and Gretel. Calendars are no longer of any use, now that Sinbad has slain Santa Claus and his wife, the Hunchbaby of Notre Dame. Desperate times call for desperate measurements, which explains why speed limit signs now read “Yards per Year,” instead of “Killings per Kilometer.”
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Absurdity is a weapon. A tool to murder angst, anxiety, and apprehension. It leaves no fingerprints, no blood splatter, no gunfire residue. Unlike knives and popular poisons, it cannot be purchased in grocery stores or illicit tattoo parlors. Absurdity cannot be used effectively to bludgeon small children or retired police officers, which makes it the ideal instrument to do precisely that. Anger is to absurdity is like a pistol is to a holster. Or a sword to a sheath. Or a corpse to a casket.
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Random Thoughts on Rage: Rage is the successor to unsuccessful anger. Rage steps in when simple anger fails to accomplish its aims. Rage is concealed by a microscopically thin layer of tolerance or acceptance. Blind rage emerges when simple anger cannot light the pathway to revenge. Rage is a symptom of unconquerable exasperation. Properly channeled, age can accomplish so much; too bad its successes are so often disguised as murder.
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I have allowed myself to sit at my desk, writing useless drivel and documenting my own insignificance, for quite a long time. The fluctuations have widened; my computer widget now claims the outdoor temperature is 14″F. It’s 9:00 a.m. now; hours pass while an empty mind has become a vacuum. I wear my patience like a tattered white flag, announcing my surrender while I survey the universe for hidden nests for snipers; places to hunt for them or places to embrace their passions. Ah, but one’s effectiveness as a sniper is likely to be extremely poor if one lacks access to a rifle…and a motive. So, instead, a more appealing option may involve pursuing a late-life-career as a peacemaker, a pacifist who has abandoned rage in favor of universal compassion. But a career as a pizza-delivery-driver in a temperate climate might have lower barriers to entry.
