The wind howls in my ears as I cross the threshold of my old haunt, now embalmed in a layer of ice--perfectly preserved below the frost, forever trapped in stasis. Like the arrested development of so many who hailed from these sprawling streets long before the long winter came. No one ever grew up here. You either died young or you withered away an old ghost, still trapped with one foot in the past. 

I can almost hear them; the ghosts of all our good times. Whispers of summers burning our feet on the pavement, hopping fences, smoking out of a soda can at the old water tower. 

But it's just the hiss of Ozzy's cryo-generator, steam billowing out of it as the snow melts, the movement of the water powering the hydraulic dynamo, which then heats the warming coils, which melts the snow and so on. The self-perpetuating cycle working to keep our lights on, our water filters busy, our delicate little lives afloat. 

Ever the frost of old wounds protects us from the sting of the bitter present. 

Beneath the ice, it's all the same as when I left it. If we could melt it all, maybe I could go back. Back to the way things were.

But this hellish frost isn't going anywhere. Not in my lifetime.