Hockey cards are here. The town is in a ferment. Hockey cards. Long lineups jam MacDonalds’ all over town.

Last week the weather turned ugly: shock and awe weather. Freezing rain and blinding whiteouts. Cars and garbage cans, signs, power poles, mailboxes and stray pets were encased and frozen. Then covered up in feet of thick, crusty snow. Clinging to the vestiges of sanity, I took to tearing out walls. Plaster dust built up like the snowdrifts that had us besieged, and the basement began to look like Port au Prince. The good news came late. The ice has killed the bird flu, according to the Department of Plague. The virus nests, weighed down by icicles like so many toxic chandeliers, collapsed, crashing from under the eves of barns and bus stations, shattering like glass and exposing their nested young to the frigid air. Cleanup crews toured the city to general delight, sweeping up the broken remains and carting them off to the incinerators at the edge of town. The signal fires were lit one last time, and the smell of their smoke mingled with the pungent smell of burning viral husks. Our leaders now appear in public with their faces exposed. The gas masks that they have been wearing since fall tucked into briefcases held in the background by their aides.