The machinery of England has frozen solid again, causing me to be trapped in the house for the past two days.
To go outside is to risk injury at worst, and the embarrassment of having to scrape oneself off the pavement uninjured at best. I’ve already gone over four times since the ground became a fricitionless hazard and so I remain here, like a caged animal.
Being alone for two full days with very limited human interaction - the odd phonecall, some correspondence from Bluefish to break the monotony - is how I imagine it must be in prison. Endless layers of time, blocking creative outlets and killing ideas before they’ve had the opportunity to fully reveal themselves.
When my surroundings freeze, I solidify with them to the point that I am incapable of thinking, writing. Banished behind walls, behind doors, and incapable of bleeding the cold from my bones, I am another victim of the cold snap.
The radio reports that there’s going to be another fortnight of this: another two weeks of sentences being frozen on lips; another two weeks of humans passing through one another like ghosts, the smoke issuing from their noses and mouths.
There is nothing to be done to prevent the final plunge into madness upon the back of this new, winter solipsism.