Something’s wrong with the world and I don’t know what it is…

It used to be better, of course it did. In the golden age of legend, when there was enough to eat and enough hope, when there was one nation under god and people could lift their eyes and see beyond the horizon, beyond the day. Children were born happy and grew up rich.

Now that’s not what we’ve got. Now we’ve got this.

Over here, the ABondo tower with its MurderTao snipers blowing away anyone they want just for practice… and then there, the Mallrats in their sprawling compound bursting with riches and goodies un-fucking-heard of anywhere else. I don’t even want to talk about Apartment 16, that freaky-deeky-squicky feast-family ripping one-another up and eating the little wet shreds to keep warm and safe and strong. And somewhere, somehow McGafferty is slinking around and fucking around and screwing around.

And all of that is just warm-wise — you know: towards the broken fragments of civilization, what’s left of the skeleton steel towers that have sloughed off their glass and concrete under the weight of world-ending snow and life-snuffing ice, and the tunnels and hidey-holes dug out in the frost and rock filling the basements and sublevels of what-was-once society. Meanwhile, White-wise — the other direction, genius — you’ve got: YETIS.

…not really, I don’t think, but snow raiders anyways. Mounted on cobbled together or scavenged vehicles and loaded up with whatever heavy/bladed/clawed/fuckyou thing they can carry and wearing skins to keep warm, skimming across the snow drifts and ice fields shining like warped glass. They’ve got compounds in the valleys and the snowed-in train depots and gas stations or whatever other fucking archaic ember-shit ruins but, surprise surprise, they want what you’ve got too.

And while we’re on this, let’s get it straight: this snow is bullshit. This gritty gray sand drops out of the blood-scab-black sky in sheets and just hangs there in the air all day. Like dust or dandruff or Rolfball’s smell, it suffuses your hair and clothes and catches on your tongue and buries the buildings and Snow Packs every day, every hour, every chance it gets. The hills and even some streets don’t look at the end of the day like they did when you woke up, and you only know its day ‘cause that sable-shroud sky glows such a happy shade of sliver-tick gray when you wake up, and when you go to sleep it’s vomiting razor-wire rain that freezes whatever it touches and purple scars that melt whatever they shred into.

And pray to the Snow Bunnies you’re indoors with enough shit to burn ‘til morning or you’ll be thrown out into the Packs when you start to come down with it and your brain starts to Melt.

And there’s workaholic Proust and his Crew, and fuck-you-kindly Boxer and her fuck-off dog and hardware, and stitch-jockey Inch’s infirmary and its staff, and brain-twister Iris and her luxurious little flat.

And that’s deLeon.

And you, who are you? This is what we’ve got, yes. What are you going to make of it?