After Thursday night's storm, the Tumnus Street sidewalk was reduced to a narrow, icy path between two banks of freshly shoveled snow. Pedestrians were advised to navigate this frozen, rough-hewn avenue at their own risk. Some of them tiptoed along with exaggerated care, arms flung out wide for balance, like nervous children stepping onto an ice rink for the first time in borrowed skates. Others, clad in knee-high, clown-sized winter boots, stomped determinedly across the hazardous terrain, either late for an audience with the White Witch or maybe just wishing to express their contempt for her attendant weather.
Whatever the approach, progress, limited to single-file perambulation, was difficult. At one point, I became stuck behind an especially slow-moving, shapeless mass of hooded puffa coat and pantaloonish ski pants. It waddled down the street, head bowed and shoulders hunched, obviously staring at its stupid phone instead of looking where it was going. How rude. What an annoyance. Summoning my inner Baryshnikov, I scissor leaped past this phone-engrossed obstruction as soon as such a daredevil move was feasible, fortunately managing to land upright with one foot on the sidewalk and the other in a mound of snow.
Once safely ahead, I shook the snow from my shoe and turned around to deliver a withering and accusatory glance to the source of my irritation, only to discover it wasn't staring at its phone after all. The shapeless mass, identity still hidden by a massive hood, was actually obsessively shaking and gazing at a Magic 8 Ball toy, apparently demanding a specific response to a question that the plastic soothsayer repeatedly refused to provide. Whatever clairvoyant mechanism resided within the Magic 8 Ball probably felt the frigid cold as much as the human who consulted it. The runways of the Astral Plane being frozen over, surely celestial wisdom summoned from Beyond is equally as prone to bad weather delays as any Earthly courier service? In fact, the shapeless mass might just as well have resorted to its phone apps instead, requesting a Paypal fortune cookie text from some scam artist psychic hotline based in Las Vegas or Salem, MA.
The ancient Romans famously made their prognostications by studying the flight of birds. Alas, the sky is empty in early March as those telltale birds have not yet returned from the South, so that's no help. The only object that disturbs the clouds above is a passenger jet heading towards the Atlantic, which prompts me to predict I'll be flying to Italy in May: a prediction I know will come true because I've already booked the tickets. Fortune telling is easy if you take matters into your own hands. You don't need a Magic 8 Ball, a crystal one, or even a wizened crone with a deck of Tarot cards. Just declare your intentions loudly and purposefully into the void and you will hear the echoes of tomorrow. Meanwhile, and I use the word advisedly, the Future will immediately be here when we put the clocks forward on Saturday night, time-traveling towards the promised Spring with a simple adjustment of cogs and dials. Hurrah for green shoots, gamboling lambs, and freedom of movement along the sidewalk so that one can walk at one's own pace.
And the shapeless mass will have an answer to its question when the thaw comes also. I know this to be true because I actually stopped to ask what response the Magic 8 Ball displayed that required constant questioning. Its head still hooded and bowed, the shapeless mass silently held the ball out for my inspection like a sullen monk surrendering a sheet of illuminated manuscript ruined by numerous ink blots. Better not tell you now, I read in the black, opaque surface. 'It's waiting for the right moment, which is coming soon.' I told the shapeless mass. 'So put it away for now and concentrate on what's happening in the present. Have faith that truth will be revealed in time.' Then feeling re-energized by my own wise inscrutability, I hopped over a snow bank and crossed the road to where there was less annoying foot traffic.
