Winter Means Things are Getting Better

“Christmas, Kwanza, whatever you call it — I fucking hate it.

But winter… that’s different. I love winter. Here’s why.

My grandparents dreaded winter. Back when they were kids, winter always meant bad things. Meant another war. Meant foodlines, and power outages, and people their age dying alone in the cold.

But when I was a kid, I looked forward to it.

And not just because I like to see old people suffering.

Because winter meant a new season’s maker codes, and it meant clean snow that you could eat straight out of the air and…

I mean, Christmas, that wasn’t a big deal. I’d just get something else made out of lizards by Mom.

But WINTER.

Winter meant change.

Every new winter, things got a bit better.

You people don’t remeber what life used to be like. No one in the city knows what fucking year it is

Do you remember how people used to line up for bread? Remember when we couldn’t get anything to grow across half this country?

Remember this: “Email burns oil and shits filth into your air”?

‘Course you fucking don’t.

And you don’t care, either, do you? Because odds are you’re drinkng Icelandic spring water and eating Cantonese duck with fresh bean sprouts out of your maker.

Boiling and irradiating faucet water to get the shit out of it, choking on thin cheap government-issue myco-protein cakes — means nothing to you.

I remember when they switched Mercury on; remember Mom holding me in front of the TV and saying “Remember this. This is History.”

How many of you even think of the fact that all our energy comes from a planet covered in solar panels?

How many of you know that snow used to burn?

(Spider gets pegged in the face by snowballs. Turns and walks into deeper snow.)

Winter by winter, that changed.

The world got better.

And when the world still wasn’t good enough, when things were still fucked, when I got sick of the taste and texture of lizard food and lizard playthings and lizard underpants –

– there was always next winter to look forward to.

And God knows I’m hoping this winter does the trick.

(reaches down into the snow with one hand)

I keep watching the news to see if half the city’s been accidentally sterilized in the middle of the night. Midnight TV vigils, just in case the President suffers a fatal aircraft toilet accident that chucks his intestines over the city like streamers at a ticker-tape parade…

(reaching in the snow with both hands)

…that takes me back, you know, we were so poor on the Quayside that on New Year’s Eve they had to put on fireworks shows using intestines.

Luckily there were a lot of people from New Zealand around. But in the end we used them all up. I remember Lefty Ingpen tried for a similar effect by stuffing puppies in a chipping machine.

But anyway.

(Whips a huge snowball gatling gun, ‘the frostbiter 7-K’ labeled on the side)

Filthy Assistants…

Yelena – “No fair! Put that thing DOWN!”

Channon – “Don’t you dare! These are new clothes!”

You’re probably wondering what the point of all this ugly bullshit rambling bullshit is.

It’s this:

The future is inherently a good thing.

And we move into it one winter at a time.

(gun end glowing and gun shakes, and Spider takes aim with the sight)

Things get better one winter at a time.

So if you’re going to celebrate something then have a drink on this:

The world is generally and on balance, a better place to live this year than it was last year.

(gun firing a barrage of snowballs)

For instance: I didn’t have this gun last year…