A little over a week after Christmas, we woke up to a winter wonderland – 9 days too late to be charming. What might have been a charming wintry atmosphere was now just freezing cold water on the ground that made it dangerous to do anything. It mocked. In the ensuing days, snow begat more snow and harsh freezing weather begat more harsh freezing weather.

It’s eleven days after our first snowfall, and when I look outside from my balcony, I expect to see Kurt Russel chasing David Keith and Wilfred Brimley around with a flamethrower in our park.

Like many people who don’t have lobotomies, we spend more time indoors in the deep freeze weeks. Me, Burke, the cat, the dog. We stay inside and do winter activities – namely, gain weight and hate each other.

OK, ‘hate’ is too strong a word, but only as much as ‘gain’ is too mild a word. The dog has taken to running around in circles and starting fights with my hands and ankles just to release some pent-up tension. We go outside with her, of course, and the .00021% of husky in her loves the snow beyond anything. She runs and plays. It’s an old story – we’re all stuck inside, the weather is freezing, and cats in small flats = a Shining situation.

Moreover, I’m dealing with the comedown from Christmas. No, not the merry fun time comedown into real life and all of its horrors. No. I am talking about the holiday-sanctioned period of guiltless gluttony comedown into eating like a human who wants to stay alive. For me, this means popcorn.

I don’t know what it is about popcorn, but I could easily eat two bags of microwave popcorn a night. This is despite all the downsides – like the forty minutes of flossing I have to do afterwards or the fact that it gives me very weird hyper-realistic dreams. There are adult themes and scenarios in these dreams, but they never quite involve the people I’d expect them to. Instead of sipping daiquiris with Adriana Lima, I get Adrian Brody (sparkling conversationalist if I’m being honest). Or I get a strange mix: I didn’t go skinny-sledding with Rihanna, but with Rihanna Gosling. Strange. Not horrible. Strange.  

It’s freezing cold and snow has come late to us. The snow is insult to injury, as anything remotely Christmassy mocks us after the day. Decorations, a tree, a mall. Snow before Christmas is cozy, charming, fits with the mood. But did we get a White Christmas? Hell no. We did, however, get a frozen, slippery return to our miserable jobs.

What astounds me still is how easily I used the word January in December. How I flung it around like it was an order for McNuggets. ‘Oh, why don’t we do when we get back in January.’ ‘We’ll worry about that in January. Have a Merry Christmas!’ Whoever I was speaking to would agree and we would settle into the comfort that comes from careening towards a two-week break centered around eating and drinking too much while getting gift certificates for books.

But now, here we are. January. It’s no wonder this fakakta month is chock full of strange please-don’t-do-yourself-in observances. It starts out January 1 with Z Day. Oh, this delightfully quirky holiday regulates that Zs come first in that day. Which is no doubt a nice way to celebrate your year’s biggest hangover.  

In this wretched month, the 14^th is dress up your pet day. But this is nothing special as my dog has the sweater and jacket selection of a minor Kardashian. For Christmas, that holiday that seemingly occurred six months ago, I got a doggy carrier. I am that man. I own it. I also own three doggy carriers. I feel like this is going to end up on a form one day.  

I once tried to put a tiny Santa hat on the cat and the reason I know how to say that in Czech is because I had to explain the situation to the ER nurse later that afternoon. For my cat, January 22 is evidently ‘answer your cat’s question day’ which explains why she was shouting at me at 5:30 am. She has a lot on her mind and only one day to find out where I keep the tuna.  

It’s Christmas morning. I would have been awakened by the coffee pot were it not for the Shih tzu standing on my face giving me ‘gotta pee’ eyes. It’s my morning so I dress as quickly as I can in order to not be arrested for walking a dog with no pants on. On my way out the door I wish Burke a Merry Christmas. The subtext: make me a coffee while I’m away. Uber-subtle subtext: Add Bailey’s.

When I come back, I am happy – maybe too happy – to find that Burke has received the message loud and clear. I use this sweet, intoxicating coffee mix to wash down cookies and a butter cake whose every bite strips away one or two delicious months of my life. After two helping – with a side of candy – nausea creeps in. I defy the nausea by eating another helping of butter cake. Another mouthwatering month gone. I pour another coffee with Bailey’s and plop into my seat like the Emperor of Rome getting ready to watch plebes fight bears. It is, after all, Christmas.

During the year, I live a life of somewhat rigid regularity. I am up at 5:30 each morning. I stretch and drink three glasses of water, the second one has creatine in it to keep my body from falling apart at the joints. Then it’s black coffee and work for two hours before exercising. I have to do a low impact one these days lest my downstairs neighbors come up and throw a coffee cup at me at 8 am. I follow that up with two eggs and wash that down with a protein shake with fruit and honey. I then go to work. I eat a veggie wrap at lunch and my dinner would make a meat lover cry and pray for my soul. The evening sees more work – depending on what I have doing on with one of my side hustles – and I come down from that with Bigfoot television or Unsolved Mysteries or Abbott Elementary. I get in bed at 10ish and read until I fall asleep.

Wash

Rinse

Repeat

Tis the season to be merry. And what can aid merriment more than cracking a few eggs and dropping a pound of sugar into a glass of milk and then mixing it with three kinds of alcohol? Not a damn thing.

Booze has had already had a long, complicated, twin-engine relationship with the military. As had occurred in armies for centuries, men in Washington’s continental army were rationed a gill of rum each day (4 ounces). Alcohol was key to morale and order. But it came with its own problems. Everyone knows that alcohol makes civilians say and do stupid things. This truth has been entertaining and cringing humans for centuries. It’s no different for soldiers, who live in harsh conditions and live with daily pressures we can’t get. In the Revolutionary War alone, alcohol was blamed for desertions, sleeping on guard duty, failure to execute duties and jobs, and just being an asshole. It was blamed for excessive casualties along with Major General Adam Stephen, who would be the only high-ranking officer in the continental army relieved of his duty. During Washington’s sneak attack on the Hessians on Christmas 1776, the soldiers got into the Hessian rum. Their return across the Delaware was held up constantly because they had to keep fishing drunken soldiers out of the water. Aside from all that, once soldiers had too much to drink, they suddenly became probably embittered, potentially aggressive, definitely armed men who could no longer tell right from wrong or left from right.  

Similar worries had arisen at the US Military Academy at West Point around 1825. Concerns had been raised and cadets were often court martialled for visiting local taverns. The problem grew as discipline suffered and grades slipped. At an 1825 graduation shindig, a group of drunken soldiers hoisted West Point’s Commandant William Worth onto their shoulders and created a snake dance, during which they ran Worth through the campus. This was a big no-no in the army (up in the air meant easier to shoot). And it was also the straw that broke the camel’s liver. West Point superintendent Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, who had allowed booze in limited quantities on special holidays, put booze was on the kibosh list.

It’s just about winter and the days are short and begin to be swallowed up by night at around 3:30. The sun has been so absent that it’s included in the folk songs of the valley people. When I get the bus in the morning to work, I try to figure out who I’m with. Are they the winter people or the summer people?  

People are often sectioned into two categories: winter and summer. I think the membership-values are quite clear. Summer people like baking in the sun and sweating and 20-hour-long days. Winter people wish we could all hark back to a time when we lived in caves and hid from the megafauna that was running around the earth at that time using us as toothpicks.

I am a mall person. I want 70ish–75ish degrees, shade, and a Sbarro’s nearby just in case I want a slice of pizza the size of a bookcase. I have no will to deal with weather and seasonal discomfort. However, I do obey the unwritten rule that you can complain about one season and one season only. It’s not fair if you gripe about hot and cold weather. Choose one to bitch about and in the other season, suffer in private.  

Long ago I chose summer. The heat and I do not do well together. My body just loooves to sweat. And when I sweat in public, I look like I’ve just done something terrible criminal behavior for which I now await capture. It’s not a great look. Nope. Summer. I have never looked back.

But winter comes with its own challenges, among whose numbers none are the cold. This is my favorite thing about winter – bring on the cold days and the chilly nights. The dark is another story. And that story is unrelenting. Dark when we get up, dark when we leave for work, dark when we get home from work. In between? Yep. You guessed it: dark. Or at least gray.

There are lots of coping tips. To keep yourself positive, you should 1. Get sunlight, 2. eat lots of forest fruits and proteins, 3. down vitamins B, C, D and some other letters I can’t remember (because I don’t take enough vitamin B for memory help). 4. Don’t drink. 5. See people. 6. Reframe winter glumness (I guess like a seasonal it’s you, no me). 7. Read something light and absorbing. 8. Lower expectations (i.e. don’t take on too much work). 1. Write down a daily affirmation.

Right.

1. There is no sun. There is no light. There is only the gray and it will never end.

2. I do eat these things. I wish I could eat pizza too.

3. I think the vitamins are fighting for supremacy of my system. Based on my current symptoms (I am pink and now fear sunlight) I think D is winning.

4. Won’t dignify with response.

5. But I don’t like people in the sunny times.

6. This didn’t help. Just made me feel like winter had broken up with me and is now punishing me for withholding the jewelry.

7. This I will do. I read a lot of horror (maybe too much). I dreamed last night that all of the people in India disappeared. OK, definitely read too much horror.

8. Tis the most wonder—nah, tis the busiest time of the year. Work on work on work. So, whatever horror fiction doesn’t do to my psyche, the extra workload does. Maybe everyone in India was at their side gigs. Huh.

9. Today’s daily affirmation: this day will end.

Probably not what they had in mind.  

Yesterday, the dog and I were hanging on the couch. I was working, she was trying to pick a fight with me using a pair of my favorite socks. The fun ended when someone outside set off fireworks. Because what gray 2 pm on a Monday isn’t replete with fireworks that will disappear into the clouds 4 inches away from you?

When this happens, she gets upset and goes into the bathroom. It’s dark and quiet in there. She barks for us to come to her and then gets wary when we’re there. Burke decided to build her a small fort out of some blankets, pillows, and her favorite chair.

Amazingly, this worked. We put her in there and she quieted. She also seemed to be happy about the fact that her view from the fort included us and she was probably also the cookies I was feeding her.

Then it dawned on me.

A fort!

Well, I finished my work and then I went into my room. We have a few extra pillows and blankets and pretty soon, I had myself a neat little fort. I got in there with my reading light and my book. My breath is about the only sound I could hear. The pets visited quickly and wanted access. I hadn’t had time to post a No Girls Allowed sign, so contractually I had to let them in.  

I have no plans to leave. Well, not until the Indian population comes back from wherever they’re hiding out.

Now I just have to figure out how to get Burke to hand me cookies.

We live in a small flat. There are four living creatures and 12 legs. This of course is not counting the various spiders no doubt riding out the winter in my house. But the less I know about that, the better I will be able to sleep.

One of us is an old cat: pushing nineteen, I think. However, I too am old and don’t remember exactly when this old cat came to my shores. She has always been a rather rambunctious one and I never knew why. She is chatty, loud, occasionally aggressive, and overcome with the vapors if her food isn’t on time. There’s a change I once came across an article on how pets take on the characteristics of their owners, but I can’t remember, because I’m pretty sure I blocked it out of my memory. Or sent it to hell. Or both.  

Anyway, that young rambunctious cat is now an old cat. She walks like an old cat, and spends a lot of time looking at me and trying to figure out who exactly I am. But she can still move. She still occasionally explodes with the absurd ninja gifts that cats get to offset the fact that they puke for fun and can’t read books. Because if they could, they would surely rule this planet.

We have moved twice since I’ve had the cat and each time has been to a smaller flat. She was born into a wide palace where it was just me and her and occasional visitors. Then three of us moved to a smaller, but not small flat. Then we took on one more animal and the four of us moved to a smaller flat. When we moved, we left the cat in the old flat for a few days because the balcony would have been dangerous for her (i.e. she is, like all cats, curious and, as we know, this may be their undoing if they get too curious on a balcony 50 feet above the ground). But I spent time with her because I had to clean the old flat. When we finally brought her here a couple weeks later, the gratitude was palpable. I felt terrible about that: Could this old cat really think I’d abandon her now? I’d kick my own ass if I did that.

Where I now live in Prague gets very foggy in the winter months. This is because it sits on a plateau above Liben. Liben, as everyone knows, is very shady. Whatever the reasons, we spent the end of November, December and January is a cloud. Last Christmas, I wasn’t 100% convinced we’d been attacked by the Russians. I ate extra carbs in case I needed to store fat. I still store that fat – in the means of efficiency.

Nevertheless, this dense, high-climbing fog makes it like we’re in a Sherlock Holmes story in Victorian London. Sure, the kids on scooters and vaping residents kills that feel a bit. But we do have a group of homeless guys who hang out in the square that give a Holmesy vibe, especially the one who pushes himself around in his wheelchair with his remaining foot.

This foggy effect can be in turn disconcerting and cozy. Yesterday in the late afternoon, I was standing on my balcony looking out over the fog, I felt safe, warm, cozy. I was happy that I was up here and not down there; I was not in the spooky fog, where anything could get me – Jack the Ripper, vaping mugger, be-idioted scooter. From nowhere came a long, sad howl. A howl. Not a bark or a whine. A howl. And, as I said, long, drawn-out, sad, and not far enough to make me feel comfortable.

“Dog,” I said, comforting myself and my slippers. “Must be a dog.”

The long howl came again.

“A big dog, but a dog.”

One more big long howl.

“That’s a werewolf.”

I checked my watch: 3:51 pm. I then had to hedge my bets.

When I was a kid, being up all night was awesome. I would sneak downstairs and watch movies. Sometimes, when the mood hit, I would do my plug best to balance the knob so that it would provide an insight into the naughty channels (i.e. boobs). This mood seemed to hit when I was 12 and I will tell you when it stops.

Insomnia was not a word. Well, it was not a word I could spell. I was a night owl. I adored the solitude. I lived in a house with three siblings. Solitude was extraordinary and as unattainable as space and time. I also deluded the fallible belief that I was the king of night time. I could eat what I wanted and watch what I wanted. It was awesome. I would fall asleep when the toothpicks could no longer hold up my eyes – let’s say around 5 or 6 am. And then I would fall face first into a sleep that lasted until my mother threatened to set the bed on fire with me in it. She was a smoker so she had the tools handy. The week she quit, she had the tools handy and the motivation. Motive, means, and opportunity all being present, I went to the backyard and found a chair. 

Perhaps it was my lunar activities that led me to bar work. Working at a pub, after all, was being paid to be up all night and cater to other night owls. Sure, they were drunk, but why not? When I made the switch to day time work – to become a teacher – I was genuinely terrified that my system would not make the necessary switch from night owl to early bird. I figured I might have to find a school that taught night lessons. After an initial period we’ll call the days of crying and being sleepy, I amazingly did make the jump. And how! I went from being a very night owl to being a very early bird. My family was astonished; my father still doesn’t believe it. I am clearly going to do old age very well – I get up at 5 am, read paper books, and by 4 pm I could destroy a Denny’s Early Bird Special! 

It’s late October and in my estimation it’s the best time of year. It’s time to enjoy the simple things, heated beverages, apples; embrace your basic bitch self and go for pumpkin-spiced everything! Candles, drinks, snacks, shirts, underwear – the more pumpkins the better! Tis the time of year to marvel at colors, to wonder at the lives of our ancestors, and to be thankful for modernity. It’s the time when you slap your forehead and go ‘whoa, where did the summer go!’

This is the time of year to break out your sweaters, to enjoy a blustery, wet day only made better by the fact that you end that day by going home. Homes are cozier this time of year. Sitting on the couch all but requires a blanket to snuggle into.

And what better activity to do while you’re snuggled up than read a spooky book or some stories. Spooky, not horrifying. So no news, no updates on the spray tanned colostomy bag inhabiting the Oval Office. Just some good old fashioned scary stories to make you happy that you live indoors and your life is largely void of witches and zombies. So, what to read?

John Langan should be on that list. The book of stories The Wide Carnivorous Sky has some seriously scary tales. The title story among them. This book includes a zombie-esque retelling of Our Town and Mother of Stone, a Headless Horseman tale that you will think about for years (as I have). His novel The Fisherman is cosmically terrifying. You will never look at the woods nor the ocean’s horizon the same way again. His take on the wendigo will make you never trust another human being again – especially one who says they’re hungry.  

Mexican author Mariana Enriquez is another scary tale writer who should be on your October list. I have read some random stories, but her collection Things We Lost in the Fire is very worthwhile. Based in Buenos Aires, a lot of her stories are claustrophobic with elements that are not even the main concern. Soldiers, police officers, rundown cities inhabit her stories like spiders and sea serpents. Her stories are clouded with a sense of unease and doom; it’s as if even if the story works out in some way (they don’t) things still won’t be right. Get it.

After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones should be on your list. Warning: once you get started with Graham Jones, you won’t stop. After The People Lights, get into his Indian Lake trilogy and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Lonegan’s Luck is maybe the greatest zombie story I’ve ever read.

If you like horror short stories, add anything edited by Ellen Datlow to your October list. There are so many ‘best horror’ collections out there, but by far the most solid and convincing are ones edited by Ellen Datlow. If I ever meet her, I am going to thank her for the most enjoyable 6,000 hours of my life.

This is the time of year to enjoy spooking yourself out. These are some that have given me the shivers, the spooks, the creeps, and good case of the look over my shoulders (into the wall behind me, because you are never safe when it comes to scary stories). Feel free to read these. I’d love some feedback if you’re game and if you’d like to leave your own spooky story recommendations in the comments, I would be so appreciative that I wouldn’t even sell you out to a wendigo. Unless it was you or me, in which case, sayonara!

It’s a Friday afternoon and I’m reading on my couch. I’ve come across a random account of a clash between some cowboys and a band of Cheyenne in 1865. Its matter-of-fact descriptions of ambush and violence are so terrifying that even now – on a couch in a locked flat in a European capital 160 years later – I still feel edgy and cast looks behind me into my recently painted wall.  

I hear the telltale signs of Burke getting the dog ready for a walk. But today she has big plans (oh, it’s not Indian ambush big, but big for 21^st century Prague). She is bringing the dog out and heading to a café to read some study materials for a course she’s doing. I admire it; and that is where my emotional involvement in this action ends, because I don’t have to go anywhere and I don’t have to do anything. She steps out with the dog and I snuggle into the couch and read about other people’s misery. Bliss.

This bliss ends about three minutes later when I hear the door unlock and Burke enter the apartment. The dog’s little shih tzu feet tip-tap the floor. Something has happened. I sit up.

“She shit all over herself,” says Burke, answering the question that my silence has asked.

“Oh man.”