HI BURN 8

It is a cold day in Chicago.

A winter city once warm inside from the many sweet wines of victory now shivers in the bitter cold chill of defeat. The streets outside my window are quiet as the thermometer flirts with zero; salt-encrusted steel machines smoke on the boulevard - the only signs of life on this deathly frigid day. Puxtawhatever Phil tells us there is to be an early spring this year, but it is difficult to even imagine the season to come when the world remains so firmly in winter's grip.

Everything seems to crawl to a halt when it's this cold - myself included. Just as the molecules outside slow to a quivering array of frozen matter, we the breathing particles in this system too seem to slow. Information processes slowly. Movement feels impeded by invisible arms. I am perpetually on sleep's edge. It is a daily struggle to find the energy required to maintain the simplest of routines.

We are all just a few waking hours from hibernation. Just a couple of tasks and meals a day from sleeping as the mighty Bears, conserving energy for another go around the sun - which for all its fiery mass is only capable of teasing us now, even while it sustains us.

Nap anyone?