Ice and Frailty

It isn't often that I find myself contemplating death; I can find no reason for my dwelling on it now, but here I am. My thought is that it would be good to be killed by an icicle, a giant, conical spear that has been dangling precariously from a department store overhang for days, stirring with the wind but never falling, waiting for me to step outside to light a cigarette and call my girlfriend while my mom putters about the Clairol and Lacôme in the vast, cheery warmth of the indoors. An unusual breeze, a warm breath of Southern air, will sweep in just as my girlfriend finishes telling me about how her manager won't let her take next Monday and Tuesday off, so our little excursion to the Cape Cod is postponed again, and this quick movement of tepid air will betray the bonds of ice and steel and the icicle will declare independence and wreak rather unnecessary havoc below. And that will be the end of me.

Why do I consider this situation, of the many possibilities? It's not even creative. There is one reason, and it has something to do with the idea of being pierced to death by that which would just as quickly be liquified into oblivion in the very warmth of my motionless palm.