Pressure is what makes diamonds, so I have heard.

Lavish lifestyle, there to decay. Fading brilliance of new things. Look beyond, what leaves a scar that makes you smile slyly?

I have been back, in full force. I was welcomed, by bright sunshine and an eternally blue sky. I breathed in, once the city’s odour, then the one inside one of the dark underground pivo places that once was a ground floor.

This whole city has been elevated, now it is built on top of its own history. Preserved in the darkness, the moist earth. We keep on living in these caverns of forgotten times. Sometimes, we begin to become forgotten ourselves.

I am back, keeping with the pulse of this magnificent Loch of a city, the history is my Nessie and I am here to hunt forever, like Captain Ahab.

So here I sit, with my harpoon leaning against the damp stones. I am having my beer, hoping to become just like these underground caverns.

Historical, untouched, preserved.

Heavens have opened their gates and sunshine is filling the vast fields of snow. Romantic atmosphere, love all around.

Yet, my teeth rattle.

How I wish I could hibernate. But I need to go through the cold times.

I have found out that all the best activities in life are either exclusively practiced during summer or accelerated in pleasure but this season. So here I am, trying to find something that wastes my time.

Untouched I lie here, staring into the dark.

We have been so close, you and I. Remember these nights out that we weren’t supposed to do all those shenanigans? I was there, skin to skin.

From the moment you saw me, you seemed to be in love, forever. I was one of those things in life that couldn’t be ripped apart by ordinary circumstances. I was there to stay.

Now I am here, in the dark, folded and untouched. A new reign has begun.

I was the ruler of a generation of teens! I was music television, bad decisions and your first kiss. I was giving you shape when there was none to be given. I made you feel attractive, appealing, fitting into the mold of couture.

I have been exchanged with something baggy. I was your skinny jeans. What has happened to us?

Take me for a spin, just once, before I am being thrifted, in 30 years time.

I will be skinny, will you?

BOOM.

We have calculated that now must be the time to start a new cycle, at least for some people. How freeing it must be to think that something will change due to a new number at the end of our date.

For anyone not believing in this, there is a wonderful remedy: Liquor and explosives.

Numbed by a nerve agent and something that is forbidden all year, people look towards the sky and forget. The soup of emotions can be a thrill, and is even too heterogenous to be explained by me.

BOOM.

Push away the darkness by a quick outburst of light. What will happen with this new number? No one knows, so better to head into it, blinded, intoxicated or inebriated and deaf.

What did you say?

BOOM.

Wild days these are, forced into hibernation, fed by high-calorie nutrition and fermented beverages.

We celebrate, together and alone. We must adhere to the rules of festivities, it is the law. We are frozen, internally and externally.

We light up our homes and try to push the dark away.

The lights illuminate our faces, our loved ones. But here we are, facing the underbelly of what was hidden all year. The light shines through layers of socialised mannerisms that were carefully established all year.

Some bloom in these times, some are reclusive.

It does not matter whether you are the deer, frozen in the headlights of a speeding vehicle running towards you or the last piece of cheese left behind on the charcuterie board of Christmas.

In the end, you’re all, frozen.