Winter's End

[snurri]

Winter's End
Originally uploaded by Snurri.

"June 24th, 1969 was the last day of winter, and as such saw the first (but not the last) televised breakdown of one of the city's meteorologists. Channel 2 veteran Harvey Candlewright tore up his forecast and fed some of the shreds to anchorperson Gloria Woods before climbing on top of the broadcast desk and holding off three technicians and a producer with his paisley tie. He then charged and toppled one of the studio cameras, at which point the six o'clock news was taken off the air and replaced with a rerun of 'Leave It to Beaver.' (It has been said that then-Mayor Arne Faldbakken Jr., who was to serve as titular head of the city government for three more years despite advancing dementia, was watching at the time and made a comment to the effect that Whitey was beginning to act just like Eddie Haskell.) . . . The city's seasons do not follow the patterns that were once familiar; as the chief of the local National Weather Service office noted not long before he himself went mad and stepped into the path of a midnight train on Manx Boulevard, there is no reason for weather per se to occur at all within a closed system of only a few hundred square miles. Channel 9's Orville Trask has hypothesized, from his padded cell at Central Hospital, that the city's viscous shell is in fact permeable to air currents, and that the city still occupies the same location it did before the Exile, only inaccessible and perhaps imperceptible to those outside. This theory, however attractive, does not explain the way the seasons pass heedless of any calendrical considerations. The changes arrive with disorienting suddenness. Summer does not transition gradually into autumn, rather, one day the leaves change colors all at once; the next they fall, and partly sunny sweater weather descends until winter arrives, all at once. Two- or three-day blizzards are the norm, during which the Thomas River freezes (Gerber Lake is too large to freeze over completely, though sizable ice formations are seen to float upon it) and citizens race to stock up on firewood. . . . Were these dramatic exits and entrances the only change in this progression, it might not be so arduous; but the lengths of the seasons are maddeningly inconsistent. The summer of '83 was seventeen days long, while in 1999 the city sweltered for eight months under 90-degree temperatures alternating with violent thunderstorms. In 1987 winter began on March 18 and lasted until August 2, 1988. Not just weathermen, but all manner of citizens have been tested by these conditions, such that the few (relatively) stable faculty members of the City College Meteorological Department are kept under constant guard against overwrought citizens. . . . It must be acknowledged that at times these distended seasons have been of benefit. The current spring, which has lasted seven months, has been a major factor in the success of Wen Ming's 'Hanging Gardens' project, which has (at least for the time being) ended food shortages and even made it possible to stockpile a significant surplus. . . . As a footnote, it is perhaps worth noting that in a recent survey the profession of 'Meteorologist' placed high on a list of hazardous vocations, below only 'Sanitation engineer' and 'Train hopper.'" (p.277-8)

Comments

[bibliogrrl.livejournal.com]

awesome.

I like that a LOT.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Mad meteorologists. Awesome.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Not the only ones gone mad, I'm sure :-)