onomatopoeia

hunkering down

onomatopoeia – when words sound like what they mean.
zip. pop. fizz. beep. crow. bark. meow. buzz.

perhaps hunkering down isn’t quite such a clear-cut example of these amusing childhood linguistics. but when i say it, when i roll the sound around my lips and off the tip of my tongue, it sounds just like what it means. more so. it sounds like a small log cabin, half buried in snow, nestled in a pristine mountain valley, jagged peaks towering over picturesque pines drapped low on the roof, branches mingling with the steady smoke puffing out the chimney.

every winter i hunker down for the inevitable. i fill my mental bunker with goods – stock up on books and booze and defense mechanisms of every sort. and a deck of cards. you can never go wrong with endless hours of solitaire. too bad the decks still full. even when it seems the storm has passed me by, i cant seem to stop the impulsive need to chainsmoke, guzzle cheap wine, and kill time like the world outside has come to a standstill. compulsively, no tangible craving left to satisfy, my left hands lifts over and over, jabbing the cigarette tween my lips with all the stiff repitition of an old-fashioned mechanized neon sign. the one thing holding back my dead-on likeness being the need to relight.

peering cautiously out the cracked window, i wonder if the storm never came, if it’s yet to come, or if for once i was stocked up enough that it passed with relatively little notice. how much longer til equinox? can i unhunker yet?

~ by velvetmonkeywrench on 3 February, 2008.