For When You’re Scalding

Here’s what you can do when it’s too hot to think: dream a cold dream. Dream one like my husband’s.

He was on an iceberg, very very big and high. You couldn’t see the end of it.

There was little to occupy people. How did they make love or go to the bathroom? It was too cold.

He saw single-lane roads, a few cars. Track treads, not from tires. He pedaled a bicycle-type vehicle down to the edge but then realized he’d have to bicycle back up.

People could come for a month but they never lasted that long. Everything was too harsh and difficult. It was sort of like a lab to see how humans could adapt to long-term isolation and no heat, in a spacecraft or on Mars.

Everything had to be geared toward protecting the ice from heat. Though, there was no way of making that heat. And there was always the risk of the iceberg cracking apart. But sensors could predict this and sound warnings.

That’s all I wrote down.

Dreams say something about who you are, of course. The stresses play out. My husband is convinced our verdant planet will cook to death. I suppose I am, too. There’s no stopping the forces of degradation. We’re past the point of return. But my guess is, his iceberg experience has more to do with his precious Nunatsiaq News.

It comes every week to our inbox. It could almost be the Bible. I don’t understand the fascination. For a long time I couldn’t even remember the newspaper’s name, or how to pronounce it, or the difference between Nunatsiaq and the other word he kept saying, Nunavut. Nunavut is the town, I think, and Nunatsiaq might be the region. It’s part of the Arctic. Antarctica is down at the bottom, Shirley, remember.

There’s mention of grizzlies. The thawing permafrost. P.J. Akeeagok’s decision not to run for a second term as premier. The review board’s opposition to Atha Energy’s proposal to explore for uranium, citing the harm to caribou herds. The balmy 64.4F weather in Kuujjuaq on July 3, so go jump in the river. A TB outbreak. Art festivals. Somebody’s application for a bathtub. I know. What in the world. He reads it like it’s Harrisonburg.

Exercising on the floor in the early mornings, humped on the rug by the kitchen sink, like he’s praying toward Mecca, he always listens to NPR turned down low. Dire dire dire dire dire. Twisting himself into knots the other day like usual, the juices breaking out on his head, he called to me. “Shirley. The EPA will remove wording that says climate change affects human health.” I muttered something, I don’t know what. He kept on with his contortions, as before.

Oops. Nunavut, my husband tells me, is a Canadian territory. Nunatsiaq is just the name of the newspaper. The word’s meaning in Inuktitut, the language, remains murky. Here, take a look.

Photo for illustration purposes only. The iceberg that sunk the Titanic is thought to have calved from Jacobshavn Glacier, near Greenland’s west coast.