Happy New Year, friends!

My Christmas this year was very quiet, as my roommates had gone home for the holiday. I delighted my stomach in going to Chinese restaurants (in New York) for the day and returned to the “ghost” house at dusk. The night was peaceful and silent indeed. Except one issue: there was no heat. The heat had been low in recent days, so I did not know if the boiler finally broke. I made phone calls attempting to reach my landlord, but they had gone to no avail (his phone couldn’t be connected for whatever reasons).  So it was a cold Christmas night, which, I hope, would not etch into my memory for a very long time. Ironically, it was a time supposed to be warm and blessed.

As temperature lapsed over the night everything in my room had turned literally ice-cold. So did my hands and feet. In such a chill, there was no hope for me to fall in sleep. I looked at the thermometer and it only read 58 F (about 14 C) at 12:00 AM. In a haze of half wakefulness, I could not help but recalling 金庸 “神雕侠侣” 杨过wonders how a person can sleep on a  stone bed (寒玉床) in bone-penetrating coldness when he is in the 终南山古墓with 小龙女. It was a sleepless night. At dawn, I check the thermometer again. The temperature in my room read 55 F (about 12 C).

Don’t take me wrong, though. To me, this wasn’t exactly a harrowing experience. Rather, I see it as an interesting incident that might have offered me an opportunity to feel what a vagrant or someone without a shelter might feel in a bleak Christmas night. I hope this was an insight.

What’s your story?