It's mostly the sound effects

[redbird]

I wandered out into the park this afternoon, and idly picked up a sheet of ice that someone had broken off the top of a puddle. And I flung it at a nearby tree-trunk.

*crash*

It wasn't a loud noise, but a satisfying one, so I did it again. And again. I stopped when I noticed delicate crystals clinging to the bottom of one sheet of ice. I set that one upside down on the wall, so I could look at the crystals in the sunlight, then continued flinging flat pieces of ice.

A little of what I did could be justified as useful: I knocked the ice out of a storm drain, and kicked some pieces of ice away from the center of the path, hoping that that area won't be frozen over again tonight. But that, as I told the neighbor who suggested I was wasting my effort, wasn't the point.

The point was the sound of the breaking glass ice against the tree, and the thump of ice chunks against the frozen-over bit of river below.

I don't know why I'd been feeling an impulse to fling glass or pottery of late—an impulse I have entirely resisted—but I felt much better, despite sharp edges against my palms and then the cold of damp gloves (donned to protect me from those edges).

I'll probably get the chance to fling more sheets of ice tomorrow afternoon, if it goes below freezing tonight.

Some of today's ice was thin enough that I heard it breaking as a mallard walked across it.

Comments

[ailbhe]

*envy*

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

It's oddly satisfying to chip ice off the cars but I find it annoying to have to chop ice off the walkway.

The ice is thick enough on my front lawn that my dog, a beagle, is able to walk across it without it cracking.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you've been angry ...

Whether or not you have, it sounds fun and satisfying.

[slacker-x.livejournal.com]

I did something similar the other day when the rainwater that had collected in an upside down trashcan lid froze up. I broke off chunks and tossed them into the driveway. It was satisfying to hear the sounds as it broke.

So yeah, I understand.

[liv]

That's a lovely description!

When I was visiting lethargic_man in Newcastle about this time last year, we were walking in a park and heard a strange, high-pitched ringing sound. I was more or less convinced it was birdsong, but after we'd listened and watched for a while, we worked out that it was kids throwing chunks of ice at the frozen pond. The acoustics were seriously weird; lethargic_man reckoned that the sound transmitted through the air was interfering oddly with the sound transmitted through the ice and water beneath it.

I've never heard anything like that before, but this may well be because in this country, it's fairly rare for it to be cold enough for anything larger than a puddle to freeze over.