DOOMSDAY

February 15, 2026

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have set their Doomsday Clock at eighty five seconds to midnight. Presumably, the world will end before we finish this small note.

We, ourselves, are not particularly bothered by this. We were never that fond of the world, nor the world of us. What we are exercised about, is the manner of the ending. Shall it be by fire? Or, by ice?

We favour ice. Our recent experience with the mega storm,Fern, has convinced us of the character strengthening qualities of the cold.

We spent seventy two hours under Fern’s stern umbrella in a Michigan hotel. The snow swirled at the window edges; the winds whined; temperatures went negative on the Fahrenheit Scale; the power went out before dawn; and the fire alarms started but could not stop.

Aside from that, it wasn’t all bad.

All we “guests” clambered down the darkened stairs to the lobby, where the night clerk held the external door open in accordance with fire code instructions. The guests huddled some together, looking more like a bunch of winter fritzes from Stalingrad than anything else.

One particularly officious and spacious woman, who had previously budged us aside in the same lobby, now came close, and took our arm in fellowship. She could not speak, because of the orange babushka tied about her head and jaw, but the warmth of the gesture was clear.

Something like this would never happen in a South Chicago heat wave, where men in beater shirts sweat hard at open windows, drinking warm gin, while below, hairy hounds squat down beside crooked cyclone fences.

No, Cold is the way to go.

However, we finished the note.