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It came today. Our annual blitz-ice. We’ve been waiting for this: a week of bitter cold, and the promise of warming with rain. Every year the same scenario pours water on the frozen ground and everything, from edge to edge, turns into an ice rink.

People try to hold on to everything around them, but it’s no use. Everyone falls down. They crawl on all fours. Even so they fall. Cars are sliding down the road, out of control. Young people are taking tic-tac-toe videos and laughing.

And of course a special service will come soon and fill everything with sand and salt. But until that happens, people are still getting in for a while and filling the emergency room with their broken legs and arms.

And yet just last week everyone was walking in the fluffy white snow, squinting in the winter sun, and listening to the birds chanting in the bushes.