The post brings cold in grey-black packages, slipped through the mouth in the door. It used to be that the weather just changed, and we’d keep tabs on atmospheric pressure, cloud formation, and other natural phenomena, selecting our wardrobe accordingly, and rolling out our grumbles in line with tradition. We’d strip off on sand and wrap ourselves tight against anything involving precipitation in a more-or-less predictable pattern. But the market leads where the market will, and summers were bought and sold, branded in bright folders and snapped up by the one percent. For a while, the hoi polloi could afford to switch between bursting bulbs and golden leaves, with all the attendant sartorial variations, but even they became luxury goods, and even the idea of weather shifted wholly to the metaphorical. And even though my house is choking, still the cold keeps coming. The doormat is a frostbitten tongue, burning at the touch of a single silver coin.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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