The Unquenchable Desire For Ice

You don’t know what you froze ‘til it’s gone

After everything went to hell, the thirst began.

—Not just any wet desire either, but the crying want for hard, cold, indisputable ice.

Popular culture is now awash in yearning for everything frozen. This year, two Oscar nominees who had nothing else in common, were devoted to the existential loss of ice.

They surely were inspired in previous years by documentary makers, who lyrically profiled a 69-year-old man in Ecuador, the last human being on earth to climb a fading glacier. “Hielero” Baltazar Ushca harvests the “sweetest ice in the world,” with his homemade pickaxe. His glacier, Mount Chimborazo is dying.

I guarantee you, many well-heeled viewers booked their tickets to Quito after they watched the “Hielero” video. Perhaps they’ll pay him what he’s due.

We all want to shake the hand of the last man to give a damn, but more than that, the world wants to taste that ice before we die. We crave it.

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