Sweat dripped wildly from his brow. His breathing was tense and deep. He sat in a damp cardboard box just big enough for a man to sit in if he hunched his back. Ice was building on the edges of the box.
It was the second day of the third month of the year. The planet had reached its furthest point of its rotation around the sun and it was cold out. Not just run of the mill peak of winter, but a bone chilling seventy-four below zero.
The man sat in the park of the big city, alone behind a maintenance shed concentrating with every fiber of will and might that he would survive just one more night drenched in sweat and ice, so that he could move on. So that he could find a warm place to lay down and eat a small meal. The snow around him had melted away and created a more threatening problem of a large slushy puddle that he would have to sit in. It was draining the heat and energy from his body.
He knew that in time it would kill him.
The threat didn’t feel real until he started to shiver. As his arms shook violently and his mind seemed to slow all he could do was get angry. He clenched his teeth and tensed his arms but all he could do was become more angry, and with every second that slid by his anger grew. His veins bulged from his arms and his forehead and suddenly it stopped.
The pain seemed to slip away and the shaking ceased. He didn’t feel cold, or wet, or even angry.
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The man looked down at his hand and pinched his arm and felt the sting of his fingers pulling and twisting his skin but his hand was warm. The inch of slush that he had been sitting in was still there and still just ad cold as before but it was as if it had no power over him. The chill of the night breeze was still bitter and still seventy degrees below.
The man jumped to his feet and began to run. He started to run south and then turned as he neared the river. He ran straight along the river until he reached the city docks. They were deserted as they would be for the rest of the cold season.
The man had never felt so alive. The man began walking toward the market district. He knew all to well that the entirety of the city was closed and no one was allowed in during the winter years but he couldn’t help but feel like he was king of the world.
It was the 10th of the 1000 days of winter. This was the first winter cycle that the man had ever had to endure before. He was just twenty one years of age, born four years into the sun cycle.
As the man walked through the empty streets of Con-Zen Provence he felt warm and alive for the first time in days. He felt as if nothing could hold him back, but that thought came just a moment to soon.
The wurling sound of a siren becond him from down the road. A law officer pulled his vehicle over to the side of the road and stepped out into the cold night.