An Inhuman Condition

My knuckles lock and crack like goddamn peanut brittle. Even with the gloves, I can’t feel a thing. It hurts to even sit on them. I don’t know if it’s cold enough to get frostbite, but it sure as hell feels like it. My nose is like a thawing icicle – frozen and dripping. My lips have a dry burn from the cold. I feel my wet socks starting to freeze, and I shiver like every muscle decided it was a fuckin’ metronome – but the hands – they’re the worst.  Skinny, little fingers weren’t made for this. I barely have the dexterity left in them to light a cigarette, and I am not taking the gloves off.

Winter – nobody does it like they do up here. The ice storms ease in like a goddamn blitzkrieg. The weatherman has one forecast for five months out of the year: “we’re fucked.” Whoever first thought of living in this place should nearly freeze to death before being dinner for the wolves. It’s ridiculous. They’ve got so many back roads, you’d never make it to “civilization” if you were really stuck. You’d figure this far past the millennium, people would move out of the sticks. You can find a million better places to live than this with one Internet search. But I bet they don’t even know what that is.

And I understand why my folks like it up here, it’s their damn Catholic need for suffering. They need to live through this rotten place all their lives before the warm light of salvation washes over them or some bullshit. I tell you what, if that tow truck gets here before my dick freezes off, the driver can be my angel. Fifty minutes – ha! I’d call up my mom and tell her just how goddamn happy my holidays are right now if I didn’t need the battery to cuss out the calm, placating cunt from the towing company real soon.

Two hours out here, and I’ve been burning through my smokes like they were logs on a fire. Tow truck is probably stuck in a ditch waiting for someone to pull his ass out too. Serves the bastard right. Everyone dumb enough to be driving around out here deserves exactly what they get – see if I come up next year, ma’. You better hope you and dad die in July if you want me at the funerals. I’m so goddamn tired I want to sleep for a week. Maybe I can just nod off for a few.

The headlights look so bright through the snow. This had better be it – fucking halo or not.