A Cold Night in Manhattan
It’s a cold night in New York City. The terms “bitter cold” and “cold as hell” come to mind and take on a very real meaning. It’s the kind of cold that makes me wonder why humans are such relatively hairless creatures. While I generally relish my relatively bare skin, days like today make me long for a pelt of some kind. Thick bunny-like fur covering most of my body. I know the Midwest and Alaska get temperatures that would put this frigid air to shame, but you’ll find that you don’t find me in either of those places. This is New York City, the center of the civilized world, and it is damn cold.
You walk down the street wondering if perhaps you are just being soft, if you are overreacting, then you see ice on the sidewalk. Not just regular ice, but a stream leading from the dumpster that doesn’t quite make it to the curb. And you realize that it is so cold that garbage water freezes before it can even run just a few feet. A trip that usually only takes a few seconds, and the hellish Popsicle is stopped in its tracks, mere feet from it’s goal of the gutter.
A night like tonight reminds you that human beings can freeze to death. Actually freeze to death. In a coat and a hat and a sweatshirt with insulated boots and a decent pair of socks, you still feel that tired sensation, the terminal temptation to just lie down and rest, that in days of yore meant that wolves would soon be snacking on your carcass.
Perhaps I’m being melodramatic. Perhaps I’m allowing for too much literary artistic license. Perhaps, worst of all, I’m just being a wimp. I mean, the temperature is above zero. In the teens above zero, in fact. And, though that number doesn’t take into account the wind chill, the wind isn’t that strong today. Not for New York, the concrete and steel wind tunnel.
Of course the cold wouldn’t have such an edge to it if, three days ago, we hadn’t been enjoying weather in the 50s. I think the contrast is what kills you. One day you’re in the park, listening to street musicians and watching city squirrels. The next you’re walking as quickly as you can to the subway, struggling to breathe, unable to turn your head for all the clothing you’ve layered onto yourself.
On a night like tonight, the clanging noise that all heat radiators in New York seem to make is almost a lullaby. I am heating up, they seem to shout, I will keep you warm. I will warm your apartment so that no matter what it is doing outside, and it is cold outside, inside your apartment will be nice and toasty warm. Clang away, my little radiator. Clang and hiss on and keep me warm.
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